Suspension of Canadian citizenship certificates raises concerns among applicants who obtained them under the new descent rules

Ottawa —
A number of people who recently obtained certificates proving their Canadian citizenship are facing anxiety after receiving notifications from the Ministry of Immigration requesting them to surrender their certificates or temporarily suspending their validity.

The cases concern individuals who applied to prove Canadian citizenship under the new descent rules, which expanded the possibility for children and grandchildren of Canadians born abroad to obtain a citizenship certificate, following recent legal changes.

The notifications indicate that the issue is not necessarily about immediate revocation of citizenship, but about reviewing the documents used to prove family connection or citizenship, especially historical documents that were not issued directly by official records or competent government authorities.

The authorities say that some files require additional verification of the source of the documents, such as old birth certificates, genealogy records, or documents extracted from unofficial databases.

Immigration and citizenship lawyers confirm that receiving such messages does not automatically mean that the person is no longer Canadian, but it may place them in a complex legal and administrative situation, especially if they rely on the certificate to obtain a passport or prove their status before other entities.

These developments come after amendments to the Canadian Citizenship Act that effectively removed previous restrictions on the transmission of citizenship across generations, leading to an increase in citizenship proof requests from people living outside Canada who can trace their origins to Canadian ancestors.

Affected individuals are advised not to ignore the notifications, to respond within the specified deadlines, and to provide any additional documents or written explanations proving their attempts to obtain the original records.

The issue opens a broader discussion about how the government balances expanding the right to citizenship by descent on one hand, and ensuring the reliability of historical documents used to prove this right on the other.