Bill C-3, which came into effect Dec. 15, removes the first-generation limit to citizenship
A new piece from CBC on the coming into force of the legislative changes to Canadian citizenship by descent.
A couple of interesting points from further down the article:
Vermette says many Franco-Americans have long felt invisible on both sides of the border.
He believes Bill C-3 presents Quebec with a unique opportunity to repatriate or reclaim those who feel a connection to the province’s culture and language, even amid heightened controversy surrounding immigration and pressures linked to cultural and linguistic preservation.
“The Franco-American population is an untapped natural resource for Quebec,” he said. . .
In a statement to CBC, the IRCC said it does not have an exact estimate of how many people might be affected by Bill C-3, but says it expects tens of thousands of requests for Canadian citizenship certificates over time.
According to the IRCC website, at the beginning of March, almost 48,000 people were waiting for a decision pertaining to their certificate application, with an estimated processing time of 11 months.
Any Canadians want a side gig helping me forge some legal documents?
You might do better looking for an actual ancestor born or naturalized in Canada.
You may be surprised.
Unfortunately I know my lineage back to Europe so forgery is my only option
Then, since it sounds to be clear and recent, perhaps you could explore citizenship by descent in an EU country where you have a legitimate claim.
My grandfather was from New Brunswick and I’ve started gathering up the paperwork.
Good luck. That should be fairly straightforward as you are only second generation descent.
Weren’t we just being inundated with right wing talking points about how the population of our country had risen too quickly and we had to severely curtail immigration? And now we do this?
So, one is to surmise that the problem was really that the population increase did not have the desirable… hue?
And now we do this?
I don’t think it was a choice exactly. The news I was reading said the Canadian Supreme Court rejected the first generation limit as unconstitutional.
No source today, sorry. Brain is exhausted from documenting my Canadian ancestry in exhaustive detail all weekend.
Right wingers genuinely openly say “we don’t mind Ukrainian refugees and European immigrants.”
It’s not an open secret because it really isn’t a secret at all. They didn’t want more brown people in the country.
The C-3 changes were in response to the 2023 Bjorkquist court decision that struck down the first-generation limit on citizenship by descent. The Government had to bring in legislative amendments or the Court would have just struck the limit down as a Charter violation.
It was Conservative Party of Canada Harper Government that enacted the limit in reaction to air lifts of Canadians in Lebanon, calling them ‘Canadians of convenience.’
The CPC tried to amend the Bill C-3 to require a 1095 day presence in a 5 year period in order to past citizenship down to future generations, basically making it like the requirement for naturalization. Instead the law has a lifetime 1095 day presence to pass down citizenship to children born after December 15, 2025.
Oh I’m not at all against this. I am absolutely for it. What I’m against is the trumpist-smelling anti-immigration rhetoric of the right and the centre.
It’s a concern the way the CPC MPs confabulated citizenship by descent with immigration during the committee hearings on the Bill.
But that has nothing to do with this as it was a court decision.
anti-immigration rhetoric of the right and the centre
Do you think it has something to do with this, or do you assume its racism?
https://themeasureofaplan.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/2024-mortgage-share-of-income.png
You and I have talked about this exact topic before. You seemed to think my arguments about the financialization of housing were … gaslighting.
Yep. The right wing isn’t concerned about that kind of population growth. Canada was was still over 95% white when the grandparents of most people probably applying for citizenship via this pathway were born.
Good things its not racist to import a million and a half UN defined modern wage slaves to cram into Brampton basements during a housing crisis, otherwise left leaning parties would look pretty racist right now.
Which left leaning parties? Liberals?
Well no, the NDP too.
https://www.ndp.ca/news/ndp-critic-immigration-calls-out-conservative-leader-harmful-policies
They were really worried about “small business”, the LMIA scams, the Tim Hortons and Burger Kings workers living 20 to a basement due to the massive housing shortage.
Not that I don’t love Canada, despite our issues but I’m looking into getting my Irish/EU passport so I can live and work in the EU if it is ever necessary.
Understand. Many of us are considering our dual citizenship options while they are available.
How far back does it go?
There is no generational limit. However, a direct line of descent has to be documented back to an ancestor born or naturalized within the borders of what is now Canada.
Acadians in Louisiana have been successful in making claims back to the Le Grand Derangement / Expulsion by the British. They had meticulous records however.
What type of evidence? Just like birth certificates and stuff? I immigrated here from Australia, but I have a great grandmother (she was a native and lived over 100. Died in like 1990) who was sold as a slave in the late 1800s. I’m not sure where she was from, it may not have been Canada, but instead the US. My brother looking to come here from Australia and is looking into this.
Long form birth certificates that name parents and marriage certificates to show name changes would cover it.
Baptismal certificates can be used when there’s no civil registration of births. Civil registration began very late in several provinces of Canada. There’s more likely to be an Anglican or Roman Catholic baptismal record regardless of being Indigenous.
You may be able to find ship manifests and landing records in Family Search or Ancestry. Those list nationality — you would be looking for her to be a British subject domiciled in Canada at the time she landed in Australia.
Your great grandmother’s death certificate may have information that could be useful, as they usually state the place of birth. Newspaper death notices and obituaries can also be helpful as supporting information.
Lastly Canadian and US census records can be used as supporting information.
I’ll fight with/for you fuckers. Just get me some tropical environment.
Is grandma’s birth certificate good enough?
My best friend and his brother are currently in the process of getting their Canadian citizenship using exactly their grandmother’s birth certificate. I’d recommend getting a lawyer to handle the paperwork, but other than that it’s been a pretty straightforward process. They started the process back in November and should be Canadian citizens before summer. My friend’s first ever passport will be a Canadian one.
Are they going to become a resident, or just a citizen?
Looking at moving to BC in a couple of years
You’ll also need your parents info. It’s all on the Canadian immigration website and pretty easy to do, you just have to file the steps carefully. I got mine last summer through my parent’s in Canada, we just sent in my wife’s based on her grandparent’s
Do you have a link to:
It’s all on the Canadian immigration website and pretty easy to do
? The current info I have says to apply using the old forms requiring first-generation Canadian parent, wait for your rejection, and hope for an invitation at the discretion of IRCC to request discretionary grant of citizenship based on descent.
No forms for this new process appear to exist and I’m not bloody likely to achieve a certified long form birth certificate for my great grandmother born in the 1800s so it leaves me feeling pretty uncertain about what documentation exactly is or isn’t good enough.
There is no generation limit so you could go back to your great great greats or later if you wanted. I have quite a few great great grandparents who were born in Quebec and I’m gonna go for it.
For people born after Dec 15, 2025 there is a requirement for a parent to have been in Canada for a while, but I don’t know how many babies are using Lemmy and reading this.
Having your grandmother’s birth is a great start.
You need to prove a direct line of descent by birth* back to your grandmother — assuming she’s the last generation born or naturalized in Canada.
So, her birth certificate would establish that she was Canadian if it’s from a Canadian province or territory. However, you will also need to demonstrate :
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that one of your parents was her child with their long form birth certificate with her name listed as their mother — if your grandmother’s family name changed in marriage, you’ll need a marriage certificate or other proof to show she was the same person;
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likewise, you’ll need to demonstrate that parent your parent’s child through your long form birth record and possibly your parents’ marriage certificate if claiming through your mother.
*Adoption unfotunately continues to not have quite the same process:
If you were adopted, and you are claiming citizenship through your adoptive grandmother, this is possible but it’s a two step process where your adoptive parent would need a Confirmation of citizenship first and then you could apply for a grant of citizenship.
If the parent you are claiming citizenship through was adopted by your grandmother, as the Act is now, they would not be able to pass down citizenship to you. They could get a grant of citizenship for themselves but it would only come into effect the day the grant is made and couldn’t only pass it down to their children born after the date of granting.
Where are you going this stuff from about extra steps for adoptive parents? I was just reading the CIC summary of new guidelines and it said adoptive parents count the same as birth parents. You just need to get a certificate of adoption or other proof that the adoption happened and proof that the adoptive parents were Canadian citizens at the time
Concerns about equity for adopted persons were raised by senators when the bill was being studied in committee. They let C-3 go through due to the need to address Bjorkquist but asked the Minister to come back with further amendments in future.
There is a different form and process for adopted persons adopted outside of Canada. Current processing time is about two years.
It involves two steps:
- Confirmation of parent’s Canadian citizenship, which when completed provides a digital identifier to be used in step two
- Applicant provides the documentation of the adoption and original birth certificate.
The text on the linked IRCC page reads:
If you choose to apply for citizenship, there are 2 parts to the process:
Part 1: We check if the parent can pass on Canadian citizenship to their adopted child.
Part 2: We check if the adopted child can become a Canadian citizen. See:
Thank you
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Should be, as long as your able to prove lineage, and it wasn’t uncommon at the time for the wife to drop her maiden name for the spouse’s, so you may have to also dig out a certificate for the name change if that is the case.
don’t we also have to live in canada for 3 years?
No.
The 1095 day presence is a requirement should you wish to pass Canadian citizenship to a child born or adopted after December 15, 2025z
thank you. the articles i find are intentionally obtuse and confuse the different admission programs with each other. it’s almost like they don’t actually want us using these programs

Do photos of ancestors qualify?
Hard to provide residence address. They tended to move around a lot.
Heh, what about ancestors predating photography generally. I’m officially on tribal rolls for a segment of a tribe death marched across continent. That the capital of Canada literally shares a name with and still has a presence in Canada. One of these days I should stop wondering about it and start finding out. It’s a long shot but still.
Completely against this.
Every single election cycle we hear the same thing from either side of the aisle of American politics where if the person they’re against wins, suddenly they want to move to Canada.
We already have a big enough problem with having our own national identity. You can argue we have xyz that’ll keep us afloat, but the reality is, we lack a lot culturally compared to other countries in our position. We constantly lose cultural talents here to the U.S. because it’s more profitable to do what they do down south than it is here. Like, how many Canadian actors can you name that haven’t moved to the American film industry? How many of them even live here?
The same goes for a lot of major musical talents. Like wow, congrats, fucking Drake lives in Toronto, what an accomplishment that we have one major musical talent from this era who stuck around, and it’s one of the worst people you can name.
When Americans come in here through these ancestry claims, we are importing more American culture while completely failing to adequately protect our own. We are also giving credence to Americans seeing us simply as a safe-haven extension of the U.S., and allowing people to abandon the responsibility to their country if the Trump administration is the root cause of them coming here.
Want to protect those such as immigrants and trans people in the U.S.? Get rid of the Safe Third Country agreement. We should only be taking in those whose lives are directly in danger despite their actions rather than those who have the ability to do something about their situation, yet take the coward’s way out by leaving after they refused to take proper action.
You already see this crap online of people simply saying “sorry” and doing fuck all otherwise about shit like the annexation talk. Why reward inaction?
Disagree, this isn’t about giving citizenship to Americans, they just happen to be the primary beneficiaries. This is an attempt to right the wrong that was the mass deportation of french canadians by the british after they took new france.
When your national identity is colonizing, raping, and killing children, maybe it shouldn’t be preserved.
Please note that I am an Ojibwe man with a French last name before you tell me it was a long time ago and the history should stay in the past.
We can denounce the horrible shit that people have done in the past and correct the wrongs that continue to happen while also making indigenous people front and centre of how we approach our national identity, especially when it comes to the connection we have to the land that we live on seeing how indigenous people’s cultures are by and far the most attached cultures to the land which we live on.
I respect treaty rights and the right for First Nations have regarding self-determination, and there should be more efforts out there to help give proper reconciliation to the people we’ve historically harmed who have more right to this land than anybody else.
In Edmonton for example, while there is absolutely more that needs to be done, especially when it comes to helping indigenous people directly through social services and the likes, I do appreciate that the efforts for reconciliation have been made such as the renaming of city wards to Cree names, renaming Dan Knott Junior High to Kisêwâtisiwin due to Knott’s very likely connections to the KKK, and renaming the Oliver community to Wîhkwêntôwin because of Frank Oliver’s racist efforts and attitudes towards indigenous people like the Papaschase as well as Black immigrants.
We are leaving the very people who hold the richest culture relating to our land behind, and it is absolutely inexcusable that we continue that pattern, to which we should hold the government to account.
Edit: Looking at the modlog for you and the absolutely vile things you’ve said about people, I’m just not going to engage any further.
I can appreciate your concern.
The Liberals love increasing the number of citizens as housing starts shrink and we have a world leading housing crisis.
Gregor Robinson as housing minister makes a lot of sense when Brookfield is the bulk of your portfolio.
its rich people from overseas that are buying up all thier properties in canada, mostly from china to shield thier assets from the ccp.
You’re saying housing completions are matching population growth?
Immigrants are not at all to blame for the housing crisis. It absolutely is 100 million percent rich people’s fault for it. Immigrants build houses. Rich people buy multitudes and horde them.
You…
You think only poor people are immigrants?
And that they only do manual labor?
I’ve never seen someone attempt to call someone out for bigotry while displaying so many bigoted beliefs themselves…
It’s almost impressive
She could’ve worded it better, but she’s not wrong either. Immigrants are not rich people. I’m not a rich person, you’re not a rich person. The majority of Canadians, the majority of the world are not rich people. The overwhelming majority of people are not wealthy property-hoarders and are not the reason why we have a housing crisis.
The blame, as always, falls on the elitist ruling class that hoards wealth and resources to make the rest of us suffer for their gain.
No, they were still wrong…
And you’re just agreeing with their bigoted beliefs:
Immigrants are not rich people.
I legitimately don’t know why anyone would think all immigrants are poor. But I admittedly don’t keep a close eye on what propaganda you all are exposed to.
With established immigrants achieving a 69.7% homeownership rate compared to 61.9% for Canadian-born citizens, this data challenges common assumptions about housing trends in Canada.
https://immigrationnewscanada.ca/immigrants-surpass-canadians-homeowners/
I think the problem is you think all immigrants are poor refugees, which again, is incredibly bigoted.
But it seems like you hold these bigoted beliefs out of sheer ignorance and not maliciousness, that’s the only reason I’m bothering to try and explain it to you
I never once said nor even implied that they were poor refugees and neither did Lumelore. We just said that rich people are to blame for the housing crisis. Rampant wealth inequality means that the majority of people on earth are not rich. Only a very very tiny few at the very top of the economic pyramid actually are.
Drop the strawmanning. It does no you favours.
Neither of you are correct…
But now you’re getting belligerent.
Just stop being a bigot instead, it’s honestly a lot better for everyone.
They aren’t to blame, they are the cause.
If rich people horde them its because of mass immigration, causing speculation. Rents are also rising dramatically.
The Government responded to the 2023 Bjorkquist court decision that found the first generation limit unconstitutional as a violation of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
C-3 establishes a requirement going forward: to pass down citizenship to persons born after December 15, 2015 a parent born outside Canada must have had a cumulative 1095 day presence in Canada before the child’s birth.













