Ottawa directs some with ‘Lost Canadian’ citizenship to surrender documents

OTTAWA — Some people who received proof of Canadian citizenship under the “Lost Canadians” legislation that passed last year are now being told to surrender their certificates of citizenship.

Immigration lawyer Amandeep Hayer said one of his clients received a message from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada on Saturday saying they need to turn over their citizenship certificate.

The message says the certificate must be surrendered during an investigation because the application didn’t cite proof of Canadian family from original sources — such as vital statistics — explain why original documents were not provided and detail efforts to obtain those documents.

“Now, generally IRCC will allow alternative evidence, but they do expect you to try to obtain the official birth records first,” Hayer said.

Hayer said, based on Reddit threads on the subject, he estimates “at least a couple hundred people” have received similar letters.

When Bill C-3 became law, it created new citizenship by descent rules meant to replace a Stephen Harper-era law limiting the ability to pass on Canadian citizenship to the first generation born outside Canada. That law was deemed unconstitutional in December 2023 by an Ontario Superior Court judge.

The new law says that people born or adopted outside of Canada before Dec. 15, 2025 are automatically Canadian if they can prove they had a Canadian parent. This applies to anyone whose parent also became Canadian because of the new law, which means it could stretch back generations.

Hayer said this change has people looking deep in their genealogy for Canadian ancestors, but finding documents to prove that can be difficult. That has some people to comb through census data, baptismal records and third-party services like Ancestry.com to prove Canadian lineage, he said.

Anyone born or adopted abroad on or after Dec. 15, 2025 to a Canadian parent who was also born outside the country can only claim citizenship if their parent spent at least three years in Canada before their birth.

The Canadian Press has reached out to Immigration Minister Lena Diab’s office and IRCC for comment but has not yet received a response.

Maureen Silcoff, an immigration lawyer with 38 years experience, said she’s never seen a situation like this before. While the minister has authority to review and suspend documents like this, Silcoff said, the fact these citizenship certificates were issued and then pulled back raises management questions.

“It raises a question, first of all, why was a certificate issued if the requirements were not met to start with? And the second question that comes to mind is, could it be that the explanation was indeed submitted but somehow overlooked?” she said.

“Either way, it’s a problem. If they didn’t and they got approval, it is a problem. If they did and it was overlooked, it’s also a problem.”

The letter states that recipients will have an opportunity to respond with further documentary evidence supporting their citizenship claim, and if that is accepted they will get their citizenship certificate back. The letter also says that government systems have been updated to show the recipient’s citizenship is under review.

Silcoff said IRCC needs to explain why these letters are being issued after people already received their citizenship, as it is leaving people in legal limbo.

Hayer said that anyone who received one of these letters should contact IRCC for more information.

“I’d also convince anybody who received these to do an access to information request into their file and see … what the notes show,” he said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jun 15, 2026.

David Baxter, The Canadian Press