Law to restore rights to citizens born abroad

Feds move to help 'lost Canadians' after court ruling

- NICHOLAS KEUNG

Citizenship advocate Kathryn Burton gets a hug from her son as she talks with Immigration Minister Marc Miller following Thursday's announcement in Ottawa.

Following a court order, the federal government has introduced legislation to restore the citizenship rights of “lost Canadians” born outside Canada and ensure that what happened to them doesn’t happen to others in the future.

This legislation would automatically confer Canadian citizenship on people born abroad to a Canadian parent who was also born abroad before the changes are enacted. Anyone born outside the country subsequently would need to prove their foreign-born Canadian parent had a “substantial connection” with Canada by meeting a residency requirement.

“It will be the first time that the Citizenship Act is actually Charter compliant,” said Don Chapman, a staunch advocate for lost Canadians, after Bill C-71 was tabled in Parliament on Thursday. “It’s monumental. And it has huge ramifications.”

In 2009, the Conservative government abolished the “substantial connection” regime and adopted a blanket rule that denies the first generation born abroad the right to pass on citizenship by descent outside Canada to the second generation born abroad. The result created a generation of “lost Canadians.”

“We want our citizenship to be fair, accessible, with clear and transparent rules,” Immigration Minister Marc Miller told reporters. “Not everyone is entitled to it, but for those who are, it needs to be fair.

“We wanted to take this opportunity to continue to minimize differential outcomes as much as possible for children born abroad … compared to children born to Canadians” in Canada.