As the federal government seeks to amend the Citizenship Act, Conservative MPs have made an unsuccessful attempt to limit birthright citizenship, saying a decade of “misguided” policy has broken the consensus on immigration.
The House of Commons is currently reviewing Bill C-3, which aims, among other things, to ensure citizenship by descent is granted to anyone born outside Canada to a parent with citizenship. This would also extend after the first generation if the parent had a “substantial connection” to Canada before the child’s birth, defined as having spent 1,095 cumulative days in Canada.
The bill comes in response to an Ontario Superior Court ruling in 2023 that said imposing a first-generation limit on citizenship for many people, further to legislative changes made by the Stephen Harper government, is unconstitutional….