Overview
- Liberal and NDP MPs voted to scrap Conservative committee amendments that would have required adults claiming citizenship by descent to pass language and citizenship tests and undergo security screening.
- The House also rejected a Conservative proposal to confine the required 1,095 days in Canada to a five-year window, retaining the cumulative residency requirement before a child’s birth or adoption.
- Bill C-3 responds to a 2023 Ontario court ruling that struck down the first-generation limit on citizenship by descent, and Parliament faces a court-imposed deadline of Nov. 20 to finalize a remedy.
- Immigration officials had warned that imposing language, security and citizenship tests on Canadians by descent would be impossible to operationalize.
- Advocates welcomed the vote as restoring rights to people wrongly denied citizenship, while Conservatives argued the changes devalue citizenship, and the PBO projects up to 115,000 new citizens over five years.