Thousands of people obtain Canadian citizenship thanks to a new legal amendment

Ottawa —
Thousands of people around the world have obtained certificates proving their Canadian citizenship, following a legal amendment that expanded the right to citizenship by descent for those with Canadian origins.

During the first three months of implementing the change, the Department of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada issued 4,075 citizenship certificates to individuals who became eligible under the amendments in Bill C-3.

The new law allows people living outside Canada to apply for citizenship if they can prove their connection to Canadian grandparents, even if the Canadian grandparent or ancestor left the country generations ago.

Before this amendment, Canadian citizenship by descent was mostly limited to the first generation born or adopted outside Canada to a Canadian father or mother, until courts deemed this restriction unconstitutional.

Figures show that 1,955 of the applications approved under the new rules were for people born in the United States, nearly half of the beneficiaries of the change.

Those born in Mexico ranked second with 900 approvals, followed by those born in the United Kingdom with 140 approvals.

During the same period, the department also approved 13,310 citizenship certificates for people who were eligible under the previous first-generation rules, including 6,135 born in the United States.

The amendment reflects a significant shift in Canadian citizenship policy, as it opens the door for a larger number of children and grandchildren of Canadians abroad to claim the citizenship of a country to which they are family-connected, even if they were not born or have not lived there.