Today, Thursday, May 23, 2024, the Honourable Marc Miller, Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), introduced legislation that would extend citizenship by descent beyond the first generation.
Bill C-71, An Act to amend the Citizenship Act (2024), would automatically confer Canadian citizenship to persons born abroad to a Canadian parent who is also born abroad prior to the coming into force of this legislation. It would also extend access to a direct grant of citizenship to children born abroad and adopted by a Canadian parent beyond the first generation. Following the coming into force of the legislation, parents born abroad who have or adopt children also born outside Canada will need to have spent at least 1,095 cumulative days of physical presence in Canada prior to the birth or adoption of their child to pass on citizenship.
Bill C-71, An Act to amend the Citizenship Act (2024), would also restore citizenship to “Lost Canadians”—individuals who lost or never acquired citizenship as a result of outdated provisions of previous citizenship legislation. Bill C-71 would also provide citizenship to the descendants of “Lost Canadians” and to anyone born abroad to a Canadian parent in the second or subsequent generations, before the legislation comes into force.
If you may be impacted by the changes proposed in Bill C-71, An Act to amend the Citizenship Act (2024), please be advised that, if the bill passes in Parliament and receives Royal Assent, IRCC will work as quickly as possible to implement these changes and will provide more information for eligible individuals, which Abrams & Krochak will publish on our website.