Citizenship Act
Bill to Amend--Second Reading
November 6, 2025
Moved second reading of Bill C-3, An Act to amend the Citizenship Act (2025).
She said: Honourable senators, I would like to begin by recognizing that we are gathering today on the traditional and unceded territories of the Algonquin Anishinaabeg Peoples. We are grateful to live and work on these lands, and we must continue to reflect on how our laws, including citizenship laws, are shaped by our shared responsibilities.
Colleagues, it’s interesting that we are considering Bill C-3, An Act to amend the Citizenship Act (2025), related to the restoration and acquisition of Canadian citizenship, at the same time as the Senate is considering Bill S-2, An Act to amend the Indian Act (new registration entitlements).
While today we are concerned with restoring the rights and entitlements to Canadian citizenship by descent, our colleagues on the Standing Senate Committee on Indigenous Peoples have been studying a law which addresses some of the remaining inequities in the registration and band membership provisions of the Indian Act. Both of these laws are about the right to belong, about identity.
As a Nova Scotian who has spent much of my career working with communities in Canada and around the world, I have seen how belonging, identity and citizenship shape people’s lives. I have heard from families who carry Canada in their hearts whether they live in Antigonish, Edmonton, Botswana or Bolivia. Their experiences remind us that citizenship is about more than paperwork. It’s about connection. It’s both a privilege and a profound bond, and for many of those we are talking about today, it’s actually a right.
By way of background, on January 1, 1947 — cast your minds back to 1947 — the Canadian Citizenship Act came into force. That marked the beginning of Canadian citizenship as a legal status. Prior to this post-Second World War initiative of the government of former prime minister William Lyon Mackenzie King, individuals born in Canada and naturalized immigrants were classified as British subjects.
The Canadian Citizenship Act was a significant expression of Canada’s emerging sense of national identity. The government also hoped that the creation of Canadian citizenship would alleviate racial and ethnic tensions in Canada and foster a sense of unity amongst its increasingly diverse population.
In Canada’s first citizenship ceremony, on January 3, 1947, 26 individuals were presented with their certificates of Canadian citizenship. Among the recipients was Prime Minister Mackenzie King himself. He received certificate number 0001.
The Canadian Citizenship Act established three ways to acquire Canadian citizenship: first, by birth on soil if a person was born in Canada; second, by naturalization, if a person immigrated to Canada and acquired Canadian citizenship status; and, third, by descent: If a person was born outside Canada, they could derive citizenship from a Canadian citizen parent.
A new Citizenship Act was introduced in 1977, and it maintained those three ways to acquire Canadian citizenship. It did remedy some of the obstacles to citizenship that had resulted in Lost Canadians earlier on, but it did not resolve all of them.
Today, we’re discussing a bill many have been waiting for, one that aims to address long-standing issues in Canada’s Citizenship Act so it better reflects both the value of Canadian citizenship and the reality of how Canadian families live today in our very interconnected world.
Over the years, changes to our citizenship laws have had some unacceptable consequences for Canadian families — in particular, the first-generation limit introduced in 2009. It has meant that a Canadian citizen born outside our country who acquired citizenship by descent generally cannot pass citizenship to their child if that child is also born abroad. This includes families with genuine ties to Canada. This includes families like mine and, I suspect, families of some of my Senate colleagues. I know Senator Boehm had two children born outside Canada.
Imagine all the children born to Canadian Armed Forces personnel while their families were posted in Europe, Canadian diplomats posted around the world, Canadians working for the UN or international NGOs and Canadians running or working for international businesses.
Now I will tell a personal story. On April 8, 1982 — I will now take you with me into my labour — by the light of the kerosene lantern, assisted by two highly skilled Botswanan midwives in the Seventh Day Adventist Hospital in Kanye, Botswana, I gave birth to my youngest daughter, Lindelwa Naledi, or Lindi. My husband and I had been living in Botswana for close to two and a half years. I was working for the Ministry of Commerce and Industry as the Rural Industrial Officer for the southern district of that country. Our 6-year-old daughter, Emilie, and our almost 3-year-old daughter, Lauren, were born in Canada.
At 27 years old, I had no idea the rights of my new baby, born that night, would be different from those of her Canadian-born sisters. Lindi did get her Canadian citizenship as the daughter of two Canadians. But when she gave birth in 2017 and 2019 to her two daughters in Monterrey, Mexico, she did not have the right to pass on her Canadian citizenship to her children Violetta and Sierra, my two youngest grandchildren.
Those children did get their Canadian citizenship through their Nova Scotia-born father, not through their mother, my daughter. If her partner had been Mexican, or any other nationality, they would not have had the right to Canadian citizenship, even though their mom was Canadian and her mom was a Canadian senator.
Her sisters, Emilie and Lauren, could have passed on their citizenship to their children no matter where those children were born in the world because these first two children of mine were born in Canada. This didn’t end up being tested for them because my other grandchildren were born in Edmonton, Halifax and Antigonish.
Colleagues, you have three sisters — my three daughters — all Canadian, all born to Canadian parents who, before Bill C-3, do not have the same right to pass on their citizenship.
Fortunately, in the Bjorkquist litigation in 2023, the Ontario Superior Court of Justice declared key provisions of the first-generation limit on citizenship by descent are unconstitutional. The court found this limit, as it stands, is inconsistent with the Charter. The court has suspended its declaration from coming into effect until November 20, a date approaching very soon.
Unless we act by that date, the court’s declaration will come into force and citizenship by descent will have no limit for many, while some Lost Canadians will remain in limbo. That’s why I urge this chamber to move this legislation forward as quickly as possible. The term “Lost Canadians” has generally been used to describe those who lost or never acquired citizenship due to certain outdated provisions of former citizenship legislation.
Bill C-3 is a reasonable response to the court’s declaration. It affirms the right to citizenship, as conferred under this bill, can’t come with arbitrary restrictions. It strikes an important balance, ensuring fair access while protecting the value of Canadian citizenship.
Let me outline several features that speak to the clarity and fairness of this bill.
First, Bill C-3 proposes clear rules for access to citizenship by descent going forward, from this point on. In future cases where the Canadian parent was born or adopted abroad, their child born or adopted abroad can access citizenship as long as the parent has a substantial connection to Canada. Substantial connection is shown by being physically present in Canada for 1,095 days, or three years, cumulatively before the child’s birth or adoption.
The government chose this approach because it’s similar to the 1,095-day physical presence requirement for naturalization. It recognizes that Canadians born abroad may have established a connection to Canada and this connection can continue to be maintained while pursuing opportunities abroad, as many Canadians do.
For example, a Canadian born abroad may spend most of their childhood in Canada, choose to come study here or accumulate time in our country through visiting and/or caring for family members.
Second, the legislation addresses historical gaps like the one I was talking about. If enacted, this bill would confer citizenship on those subject to that first-generation limit, meaning all those born abroad in the second or subsequent generations to a Canadian parent before this legislation comes into force. This would have been the case for my Mexican-born grandkids of my Botswanan-born daughter if they hadn’t had a Canadian-born dad.
This will be the case for friends of mine who live in Washington, D.C., and probably friends of many of you. My friend Annie is Canadian by descent through her mom. Her two children were born in the U.S., as was she. Her children are not currently automatically eligible for Canadian citizenship due to the first-generation cut-off. With Bill C-3 coming into force, her children will receive their Canadian citizenship.
This bill will also restore the citizenship of people who previously lost it due to the now-repealed age-28 requirement. This was a situation whereby some Canadian citizens born abroad lost their citizenship if they did not apply to retain it by age 28, as was required at that time by section 8 of the Citizenship Act.
This includes people who considered themselves Canadian in every way or lost citizenship unknowingly. Bill C-3 ensures the law will finally reflect that reality.
Third, the bill maintains the framework that provides similar access — and this is important — to citizenship for families who adopt children abroad. This will ensure that, before the bill becomes law, families have access to citizenship through the direct grant pathway — that’s the other pathway, a naturalization pathway — for all children adopted by a Canadian parent. They will have access after it becomes law, provided the Canadian parent, who was also born or adopted abroad, has accumulated the required three years of physical presence in Canada. This will align the approach for children both born and adopted abroad.
Fourth, Bill C-3 provides for access to a simplified process for those who may automatically receive Canadian citizenship through these changes but don’t wish to keep it, for example, in some cases where dual citizenship may conflict with another country’s laws.
We’ve heard concerns that Bill C-3 could mean hundreds of thousands of new citizens, which could put pressure on social services.
No one can give a precise forecast of how many people will become citizens through Bill C-3 because Canada has not tracked births abroad since 1977. Uptake also depends on future personal choices: where Canadians have children, whether they even do so, how many they might have and whether any of these new citizens will choose to come forward to seek proof of their new citizenship.
What we do know is that between January 2024 and July 2025, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, or IRCC, received just over 4,200 applications for discretionary grants of citizenship under the interim measure for those affected by this first-generation limit. Since the government introduced previous amendments in 2009 and 2015, in that period, around 20,000 Lost Canadians have come forward to apply for proof of their citizenship. IRCC received fewer than 2,400 applications per year from Lost Canadians in the busiest years after the changes came during that period came into effect.
Based on that evidence, today, IRCC anticipates volumes in the tens of thousands over time, not hundreds of thousands.
When it comes to the question of the cost to Canada, it’s true that anyone who becomes a citizen as a result of Bill C-3 will be entitled, like any other citizen, to access the government programs or services for which they are eligible. That’s the key: for which they are eligible.
It’s important to note that every program or service, whether federal or provincial, has its own eligibility criteria. These criteria can include age, income level, tax filing, residence in Canada or residence in a specific province or territory for a specific amount of time. They don’t just depend on whether or not a person is a citizen.
Anyone who applies to any specific program or service needs to meet all the relevant criteria to benefit from the program or service, just like any other Canadian.
We’ve also heard suggestions that the legislation should impose security checks on people who become citizens under Bill C-3 — a cohort, I should note, that is largely low-risk children — or that these people should pass a test verifying their proficiency in one of Canada’s official languages.
Citizenship by descent has never required screening for security, criminality or language proficiency, and Bill C-3 — consistent with the amendments the government made to citizenship by descent in 2009 and 2015 — keeps it that way.
Bill C-3 is about citizenship. It is not an immigration law. As senators, we have a duty to ensure our citizenship laws are fair, inclusive and reflective of how Canadian families live here at home and around the world. This chamber has often come together to address complex, long-standing issues with care and pragmatism. Bill C-3 is precisely such an issue.
I also want to acknowledge the groundwork that has brought us to this moment. Parliament has taken steps over time to restore citizenship to those affected by the first-generation limit, including thoughtful deliberations around Bill S-245 and the former Bill C-71, and the valuable contributions made in committee.
This bill builds on that work with a complete and forward-looking solution that restores what was lost and provides access to citizenship to those who have a genuine connection to Canada.
With Bill C-3, we can provide a framework that’s consistent with the long-standing treatment of citizenship by descent, avoids unnecessary barriers and addresses legitimate concerns with evidence rather than conjecture.
In my work around the world, I have witnessed the difference that clear, fair and compassionate laws can make. With this bill, we have the opportunity to ensure that our citizenship framework does not arbitrarily divide Canadian families and that it recognizes genuine ties to Canada in a way that is principled and, quite frankly, practical.
Colleagues, the deadline facing us is real, and we have a responsibility as parliamentarians to right some historical wrongs. The Lost Canadians who will be brought home through Bill C-3 were not lost through any actions of their own or their parents. I urge you to adopt Bill C-3 so that it can be referred to committee without delay.
Thank you. Wela’lioq.
Will Senator Coyle accept a question?
But of course.
Thank you so much for agreeing to be the sponsor for this bill and, most of all, for talking about Bill S-2 in your introduction. Just to clarify, Bill S-2 doesn’t solve the second-generation cut-off for the first women of this land. I hope we will get your support because some amendments will probably address what Bill C-3 is doing for families born outside of Canada. This comment is just for clarification.
I don’t think that was a question.
Thank you, Senator Coyle, for your speech; it was very informative. Since the bill just arrived in the Senate today, I’ve not had a chance to review it in detail. I wonder if you could tell me about the security status of these extra-generation Canadians coming to our country. In other words, as I understood your speech — and correct me if I’m wrong — if someone spent three years in Canada and had a child, that child would have Canadian citizenship. I assume that means the person could automatically come to Canada at any point in their life. Would there be any security checks on that person coming to spend their three years before they arrive here? How does that work, do you know?
I’m trying to make sure I understand the scenario that you’re proposing there. There are two things. We’re trying to rectify the situation for people who were caught in this first-generation cut-off before the law comes into force — people like my daughter, for instance, and her children. For her, it’s not an issue because she spent lots of time in Canada. Frankly, for any of them, it’s not an issue until this point because you can’t impose something retroactively. You can’t make that three-year requirement to people who didn’t know that was a requirement. First of all, I’ll state that.
What you’re talking about, I believe, is that from this point going forward, the parent has to prove that they have a substantial connection to Canada. That is three years over any period of time before they give birth or have a child to pass their citizenship on to. That’s a Canadian citizen who is going to be passing on their citizenship to their child, and that child would have citizenship if the parent had met that substantial test. That child would not have to go through any kind of security check.
My children, who are citizens, don’t have to go through security checks. Your children wouldn’t either. These are Canadian citizens. If you have met that test, you are a Canadian citizen like any other.
Just for clarification, if my daughter was born in Canada and then had a child in Switzerland, that child would automatically have, under this legislation, Canadian citizenship, as I understand it. And then that child could automatically come to Canada after spending 50 years of their life in Switzerland, because they’re a Canadian citizen. However, in those 50 years in Switzerland — I’m picking Switzerland for no particular reason — they could have had a very long criminal record, but that would not impact their ability to come to Canada. Am I correct?
It depends. Yes, there would be no test of criminality.
Honourable senators, I rise today to speak at second reading as critic of Bill C-3, An Act to amend the Citizenship Act.
Previously tabled as Bill C-71 in the last Parliament, this bill seeks to respond to the Ontario Superior Court’s decision in Bjorkquist et al. v. Attorney General of Canada, commonly known as the Lost Canadians case.
Before getting into the details of Bill C-3, it is important to step back and understand how we arrived at this point where, yet again, the government’s lack of preparation is creating an urgency in this place where a bill is being expedited and sober second thought brushed aside.
In December 2023, the Bjorkquist decision addressed the constitutionality of the first-generation limit in paragraph 3(3)(a) of the Citizenship Act. The court declared that provision unconstitutional under section 15 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and suspended its declaration of invalidity for six months, until June 19, 2024, to give Parliament time to respond.
While a significant ruling, it was not issued by a court of appeal or the Supreme Court of Canada. At that moment, the federal government faced a choice. It could have sought clarification or review from a higher court, as governments often do when constitutional questions touch upon fundamental national policies such as citizenship. An appeal to the Court of Appeal for Ontario — or even a reference to the Supreme Court of Canada — would have provided guidance and allowed Parliament to legislate on a firm constitutional foundation.
There is a clear precedent for doing so. When fundamental questions of national policy arise, governments have sought higher court clarity before legislating. In Carter v. Canada, for example, the government appealed the Supreme Court of B.C. decision — a court of the same level as the Bjorkquist court — that struck down the Criminal Code’s prohibition on assisted suicide, an issue with deep constitutional and moral implications.
The Supreme Court’s eventual ruling provided national guidance and ensured that Parliament’s response rested on a settled constitutional framework. By contrast, in Bjorkquist, the government chose not to appeal, leaving Parliament to legislate without the benefit of appellate court or Supreme Court clarity.
That decision not to appeal set the tone for everything that followed. By foregoing an appeal, the government chose expedience over clarity and politics over prudence. What should have been a moment of careful legal and policy reflection became a self-imposed race against the clock to advance its ideological vision of citizenship. In doing so, the government limited Parliament’s ability to study the issue properly and reinforced the perception that judicial deadlines are being used as pretexts to rush complex bills through without adequate deliberation.
We have seen this pattern before. During debate on Bill C-7 during last Parliament, which amended the Criminal Code to expand medical assistance in dying, the government likewise cited a court-imposed deadline as justification for limiting debate and accelerating passage.
Instead of appealing the Superior Court of Québec’s Truchon decision to seek clarity, it accepted the ruling immediately and used its timeline to compress parliamentary review on an issue of profound ethical and constitutional importance. That precedent revealed a troubling habit: treating judicial deadlines not as guardrails for justice but as tools for political urgency.
The same impulse is evident here with Bill C-3.
Time and again, the government has shown itself unwilling to prioritize this legislation. Having missed its first June 19, 2024, deadline, it sought multiple extensions with the most recent one — a fifth extension — to November 20, 2025. Now, two weeks before that deadline, with only four sitting days remaining, this chamber is asked to approve, not to deliberate.
Bill C-3 extends automatic citizenship to individuals born abroad in the second generation and beyond, even where there may be limited or no tangible connection to Canada. This broad expansion risks creating new uncertainties and inconsistencies rather than simply addressing the specific inequality identified by the court.
Perhaps most concerning is how the government has treated the court’s ruling, not as guidance for Parliament to consider but as justification to rush complex legislation through without the full rigour of the proper process.
In our parliamentary system, due process is not a formality; it is a safeguard. It ensures that legislation is tested, challenged and improved before it becomes law. When a government uses a court-imposed timeline — or any deadline — to constrain Parliament’s deliberation, it undermines the very principles of transparency and accountability that give this institution its legitimacy.
While we are in the early days of the Forty-fifth Parliament, Prime Minister Carney is already showing the same disregard and reflexes for parliamentary process as his predecessor. Rather than allowing both chambers the time needed for meaningful debate, expert testimony and sober second thought, the government is pressing our chamber for the bill’s swift passage to meet a deadline.
What should have been an opportunity for collaboration and careful review has instead become an exercise in executive haste. A clear example is the technical briefing offered today from 12:35 p.m. to 1:15 p.m., ending just as the bells were ringing for this very institution. That timing left barely two hours between the briefing, the debate on legislation that directly concerns the meaning and transmission of Canadian citizenship and a second reading vote. Such an approach leaves little opportunity for careful preparation or informed discussion. When measures of this significance are handled under such conditions, the Senate’s capacity to provide genuine sober second thought is not strengthened but constrained. Rushing complex legislation does not serve the public interest; it serves only the government’s timetable.
Our role in this chamber is not to expedite the government’s schedule but to uphold Parliament’s duty of review. The Senate was never meant to be a rubber stamp for executive convenience; it was created to provide sober second thought, especially when a bill affects something as fundamental as who we are — our citizenship.
If the government’s approach to this legislation — rushing committee study, limiting debate and treating a court deadline as a sword of Damocles — is what it considers sober second thought, then it has misunderstood the purpose of this institution. True scrutiny requires patience, proper debate and respect for process — yes, it sometimes takes time — things that Bill C-3 has not and will not be afforded in our chamber.
At its core, Bill C-3 extends automatic citizenship by descent to the second generation born abroad and introduces a new requirement that a parent must have spent at least 1,095 days — roughly three years — at any time in life, physically present in Canada before the child’s birth or adoption in order to transmit citizenship.
The bill also restores citizenship to Lost Canadians, who lost or never obtained it under earlier provisions of the act. In short, Bill C-3 broadens who can automatically inherit Canadian citizenship while setting out a limited physical-presence test for those transmitting it.
The bill defines a “substantial connection” to Canada as 1,095 cumulative days — about three years — of physical presence in Canada before the birth or adoption of a child abroad. Those three years can be accumulated at any point in a person’s life; a parent does not need to have been born in Canada to pass on citizenship. As a result, citizenship would now be multigenerational as parents no longer have to be born in Canada.
This could translate to having a family living permanently outside of Canada with multiple generations born outside of Canada gaining citizenship.
In committee in the other place, amendments were adopted to strengthen this framework by specifying that those three years of physical presence must be accumulated within a five-year period preceding the child’s birth or adoption, a reasonable amendment. This mirrored existing structures in the Citizenship Act, such as residency requirements for naturalization, and would have ensured consistency and clarity.
By requiring that those three years fall within a five-year period, Parliament would have upheld a clear and familiar standard of current, demonstrable connection. Yet despite this alignment with existing principles of the Act and strengthening the legislation, the government decided to overturn every amendment adopted in committee in the other place.
Furthermore, extending citizenship automatically to individuals with little or no enduring connection to Canada risks eroding coherence in the law. The Citizenship Act has long sought to balance fairness with tangible connection, which gives citizenship both meaning and stability.
When policy moves too far toward automatic entitlement without ensuring a demonstrable link to the country, that balance begins to weaken. Citizenship has always reflected a balance between the responsibilities of the state and the participation of its people. It is more than a passport or a piece of paper; it is a commitment to place, community and reciprocity. When we extend it broadly, without any expectation of participation or shared obligation, we risk diluting not only its legal meaning but its civic purpose.
It is worth recalling, colleagues, how previous governments addressed similar challenges. In 2006, during the conflict in Lebanon, Canada undertook one of the largest civilian evacuations in its history, airlifting tens of thousands of citizens and dual nationals to safety. That extraordinary operation also underscored difficult questions about connection, residency and the obligations that accompany citizenship, concerns widely discussed at the time as issues of “citizens of convenience.” Rather than ignoring those lessons, the government recognized the need for a balanced approach that upheld both mobility and accountability.
Under Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Parliament pursued that balance through concrete legislative reform. In 2009, Bill C-37 restored citizenship to those who had lost it under the former retention rules and ensured that it could be automatically passed to the first generation born abroad, a solution that respected fairness without opening the door indefinitely.
Later, in 2014, Bill C-24 modernized the oath, reinforced the responsibilities that accompany citizenship and addressed cases of fraud or false representation. These reforms strengthened confidence in the system by making citizenship meaningful, deliberate and accountable.
Conservatives have consistently supported efforts to correct the injustices experienced by the Lost Canadians, those who, through outdated provisions such as former section 8 of the Citizenship Act, were stripped of or denied citizenship through no fault of their own. Successive governments acknowledged this injustice, and Conservative members have backed targeted remedies to restore citizenship to those unfairly affected. That, colleagues, was a balanced path, one rooted in fairness, clarity and respect for both the individual and the institution of citizenship.
In contrast, Bill C-3 departs from that tradition. At the end of the day, colleagues, citizenship should never be treated as something to be handed out casually. It is far more than a legal status; it is a shared commitment that must be protected with clear standards and meaningful safeguards. Citizenship is, at its core, a social contract, a relationship between the state and the individual that carries both rights and responsibilities. It reflects not only what the state owes to its citizens but also what citizens owe to the values, institutions and traditions that bind our country together.
Honourable senators, while we recognize the legal realities before us, including the court’s suspension of invalidity and the uncertainty that missing the deadline would have created for families abroad and for officials administering citizenship, that does not excuse the government’s approach. We supported the procedural motion to ensure this chamber could meet the court’s timeline, not out of deference to the government’s haste, but out of respect for Parliament’s responsibility and the rule of law.
Yet, the fact remains that the government has chosen ideology over process and haste over prudence. It has taken a court decision and turned it into a broad legislative exercise without the benefit of full parliamentary debate. While we support certain provisions in Bill C-3 that address section 8, correcting the injustices faced by the Lost Canadians and related to adoptions, the bill in its current form goes well beyond the necessary remedy. By dismissing reasonable amendments that would have strengthened the bill and aligned it with the principles already found in the Citizenship Act, it asks this chamber to endorse uncertainty rather than reform.
For those reasons, honourable senators, we cannot support Bill C-3 in its current form. Thank you.
Is it your pleasure, honourable senators, to adopt the motion?
Some Hon. Senators: Agreed.
An Hon. Senator: On division.
(Motion agreed to and bill read second time, on division.)
