The Liberal government has announced an amendment to the citizenship bill that would expand eligibility for non-Canadians to get citizenship, particularly focusing on issues surrounding citizenship by descent.
Immigration Minister Marc Miller said the bill is a response to a court ruling that invalidated Canada’s existing citizenship threshold for foreign-born second-generation children.
Miller told reporters on Thursday that, “As long as the Canadian parent who was born outside of Canada has accumulated three years of time spent in Canada before the birth of the child, they’ll be able to pass down their citizenship to their child.”
The bill would amend a first-generation limit on citizenship by descent that was added to the Citizenship Act in 2009 under the Harper Government.
“Lost Canadians”—people who lost or never obtained citizenship as a result of out-of-date elements of earlier citizenship legislation—would also have their citizenship restored.
New immigrants increasingly against mass immigration
A recent Leger poll revealed that new immigrants in Canada are more likely to vote Conservative than Liberal, with mass immigration in the last five years seen as a wedge issue.
According to the poll, 24% of immigrants who’ve come to Canada in the last ten years favour the Conservative Party vs. 22% who favour the Liberals, and just 8% favour the NDP.
However, 38% of respondents are still unsure.
