C-3 is officially in effect as of today. The FAQ is kind of vague for anyone born past the second generation outside Canada, so I will be curious to see how IRCC implements it. Also, now my siblings and all my paternal first cousins are now Schroedinger’s Canadians. In particular I am curious to see how it will affect my nephew and my first cousins once removed (at least those who aren’t already Canadian via their other parents).
Schroedinger’s Canadian indeed. I’ve been struggling with the same problem since I started looking into Canada’s citizenship laws as a result of this thread:
If generation 2 born abroad is now recognized as Canadian all along, then doesn’t that mean generation 3 (or 4 or 5?) must likewise be considered Canadian all along, provided they were born prior to December 15, 2025?
For the record, I would be generation 3.
Point 5 will apply going forward, post-December 15, 2025, but from what I am reading, it does not apply to people born prior to December 15, 2025 (that was, I believe the issue in Bjorkquist: the law prior to this discriminated between Canadian citizens based on whether they were born in Canada or born abroad, and I guess the court decided that was unjustifiable, so now we have this new law, but written such that it would not strip citizenship from people who would benefit from Bjorkquist). That said, I am not a Canadian Lawyer. However, see:
…and:
From what I have been reading, as long as you can prove a direct line of descent from someone born on the territory of what is now Canada, you are eligible (as long as you were born before 12/15/2025). It remains to be seen how flexible IRCC will be with documentation requirements.
Indeed. But FWIW, the equivalent problem in the US (and the future problem for Canada, for those born abroad after December 15, 2025) tends to be proof of physical presence. I have several clients who are struggling or have struggled (or failed) to prove one or more parents were physically present in the US for some combination of years, possibly also for some number of years after turning 14, and it’s a challenge.
But as far as descent… I mean, for me, I can go onto ancestry.com and see my *Great Grandmother’s baptismal record (Quebec). I can also see where she was married in Ohio. There’s even an immigration record for her in the US when she (1) registered as an “alien” during WWII (the same law Trump has revamped to start requiring registration again today, actually), (2) withdrew an application for naturalization in the 1960s (reason unknown—maybe she just didn’t want to have to lose her Canadian citizenship, which I gather used to be a thing that could happen?), and (3) died in Canada (when I was about 5, actually—now I’m starting to wonder if I ever met her).
If nothing else, having the dates and locations (and in some cases scanned copies) of her birth and marriage records (for proof of name change, even if wedlock births don’t matter under Canadian law) should make obtaining certified (or the Canadian equivalent of certified) copies of these documents imminently achievable.
I think many will find this process becomes much easier with an Ancestry or similar genealogy website account.
Not that this is an advertisement for Ancestry. But, again, this process is going to get a lot harder for people who one day have to prove their ancestor had three years of physical presence in Canada.
*ETA: But I do see in the other thread where you mention issues with maybe informal name changes. That’s an issue I run into a lot on my end for US citizenship, too. Especially for people born in Latin America who will have two surnames at birth and then often (a) drop one surname informally or (b) switch the second surname to a middle name and also (c) anglicize their first name, to the point that it becomes difficult to “connect the dots” from one record to the next.
Yep, in my grandmother’s case, she was born with a Yiddish first name which morphed over the years into an Anglicized name that started with the same letter. In addition, her last name at birth was her father’s name, but after her parents split up when she was a child, her mother went back to using the last name of her late first husband. My grandmother moved to the U.S. near her adult half-brother, so she started using that last name, too. My father and aunt didn’t even know about her birth name until I ordered her birth certificate from Canada many years ago. Without Ancestry.com and a LOT of luck getting other documents from private sources, I wouldn’t have been able to show it was the same person.
I’m a U.S. immigration paralegal and run into the Latin American last name issue for clients all the time. Lately these days, it’s more of an issue for those trying to go the other way and get, say, Mexican citizenship by descent. They often have to get their parents’ names corrected by amending their birth certificates.
Bumping the thread as it’s now an interest of mine. Due to hostility towards certain LGBTQ groups in Ohio, my son is looking at a college in Ontario. While we were visiting, I learned of this recent change to citizenship determination, and surprise! I’m a Schroedinger’s citizen myself. My maternal grandfather was born in a small town in Quebec in 1904, and immigrated to New Hampshire as a young man. (this part was not news to me, but till now has just be an interesting part of my heritage. My mom learned English as a second language when she was 5 and I was just a normal white suburban kid).
On ancestry.com, someone has already found his marriage certificate and his name in some US census documentation. I also have my mom’s birth certificate, naturally, and I’ve just requested his death certificate to see what that says.
What I gather is that there’s no birth certificate, but there is most likely a baptismal record (or there was at one time). If there is, though, it’s not been digitized and attached to his name anywhere. I’ve found some civil records online that I believe are from the right time period and area, but 1) they’re in French, 2) they’re in cursive, which I read very slowly, and 3) they are not like any records I’ve ever seen, in that they seem to be almost narrative paragraphs with any dates or structure.
Question: are there people who are adept at navigating these records who I could pay to do this research for me? There’s a significant number of scholarship doors that may open if I could make this connection.
You want a genealogist, preferably one with experience in French Canadian records. I can pm you some other free resources if you want.
That’d be great!
P.S. it’s very, very common in some countries for vital records to be in a narrative form that we in the U.S. are just not used to seeing. I swear, older Mexican birth certificates tell you about everyone in the room, their nationality, and their relationship to the newborn!
Note that based on my experience in working on the addition of proof of identity requirements to Social Insurance Numbers in the 70s, we accepted baptismal certificates in place of birth certificates for people born in Quebec, as government birth registration was not required prior to 1926 (and was not completely centralized until 1994). I expect this will still be the case for some of the situations mentioned above.
P.S. I’m not sure where you found these online, but if it wasn’t on Familysearch.org, Ancestry.org, or similar, try there. At least they will be indexed in English.