Ottawa is drafting a bill to restore citizenship rights for “lost Canadians,” following an Ontario court ruling against denying citizenship to children born overseas and Canadians born abroad. The proposed bill would mandate a Canadian parent born abroad to show significant ties to Canada and pass citizenship to a child born outside the country. This reverses a 2009 law that removed automatic citizenship for children of a Canadian parent born overseas. The change led to some Canadians working abroad being denied the right to pass on their citizenship, and some border babies and indigenous children born in communities on the border not qualifying for Canadian passports. The government has until June 19 to act after Ontario’s Superior Court of Justice ruled it unconstitutional to deny Canadians born abroad the right to pass on citizenship to their foreign-born children.
