Ottawa has rewritten Canada’s citizenship rules, extending automatic status to the grandchildren of Canadians living overseas after Parliament rushed a bill through ahead of a court-imposed deadline.Bill C-3, now law, overturns a long-standing restriction that limited citizenship by descent to only the first generation born abroad. Blacklock's Reporters said lawmakers acted after a 2023 Ontario court ruling struck down the old rule, finding it denied status to people who would otherwise have been Canadians since birth.Sen. Suze Youance acknowledged concerns about the speed of passage but said the legal timeline made action unavoidable. The senator argued the fix was straightforward: restoring citizenship rights stripped away by a 2009 Conservative policy introduced after Canada spent $75.8 million evacuating more than 13,000 Lebanese-Canadians from Beirut during the 2006 conflict.The new law also preserves the long-standing principle that citizenship by descent does not require language, security or knowledge tests. .Youance said Canada cannot create a two-tiered system where those born abroad beyond the first generation must pass hurdles that don’t apply to Canadians born at home.The measure passed the Commons 177–163, with Conservatives warning it “cheapens” citizenship. MP Jamil Jivani accused the government of using heritage as a political tool while public confidence in the immigration system is “the lowest it has ever been” in his lifetime.Budget Office estimates suggest roughly 115,000 people abroad will gain citizenship under the change. The law requires parents to have spent at least 1,095 days in Canada during the five years before the birth of their child. A 2022 Statistics Canada report estimated more than four million Canadians live outside the country.
