Canadians Born Abroad Face Years-Long Delays for Citizenship Certificates
For families with children born outside Canada, obtaining a Canadian citizenship certificate has become an unexpectedly long and frustrating process.
Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) is currently facing a major backlog of citizenship certificate applications, with processing times reaching 33 months. The delays are leaving some Canadian families separated from their children and forcing others to reconsider travel plans.
A family separated by paperwork
When Pascal Sud and Meisha Smith were preparing for the birth of their first child, they expected a short separation from Canada.
Smith chose to give birth in Jamaica, where she had family nearby to support her. The plan was straightforward: she and their daughter, Sofianne, would return to Montreal a few months after the birth.
At the time, applications for Canadian citizenship certificates were reportedly taking only four to six weeks.
But the process took far longer than expected.
More than eight months later, Smith and Sofianne remain in Jamaica, while Sud has returned to Montreal for work.
“It’s been very frustrating,” Sud said. “I was lucky to be there for three months … but I’ve been missing every step since, and it’s been very difficult to be apart from them.”
Their experience reflects a growing problem for Canadian families living abroad.
Citizenship certificate backlog reaches 136,000 applications
According to IRCC’s latest figures, approximately 136,000 citizenship certificate applications were waiting to be processed as of September 3.
Applicants are now being told to expect processing times of roughly 33 months — nearly three years.
For families with newborns and young children, such delays can have serious consequences.
Sud applied for a visitor visa so that Sofianne could travel to Canada using her Jamaican passport while they waited for her citizenship certificate. The application was rejected, with IRCC indicating that she was Canadian and therefore required to travel using a Canadian passport.
The situation has left the family stuck between two countries.
Bill C-3 adds pressure to an already strained system
One of the major factors behind the increase in applications is Canada’s recent citizenship-law change, commonly referred to as Bill C-3.
The legislation expanded access to Canadian citizenship for certain people born outside Canada who can demonstrate a connection to a Canadian parent or ancestor. The changes were welcomed by many people previously affected by Canada’s citizenship rules, including those commonly described as “Lost Canadians.”
However, the resulting increase in applications has placed additional pressure on IRCC.
Between December 15 and July 31, 6,810 people obtained Canadian citizenship certificates under Bill C-3. More than half were Americans.
During the same period, another 20,515 people received citizenship certificates under existing provisions for people born abroad to Canadian parents.
The surge has raised concerns among immigration professionals and politicians about whether the government adequately prepared for the expected demand.
Immigration experts warn of growing delays
Christine Beltempo, an immigration lawyer with McCarthy Tétrault and chair of the Canadian Bar Association’s immigration section, said the increase in applications was foreseeable.
According to Beltempo, stakeholders knew during the development of Bill C-3 that the legislation could significantly increase the number of citizenship certificate applications.
The concern now is the scale of the resulting delays.
IRCC has acknowledged that demand has increased. A spokesperson for Immigration Minister Lena Metlege Diab said the department is responding by training and hiring additional employees, improving its intake procedures and strengthening workload management.
However, for families already waiting months or years, those measures offer little immediate relief.
Children caught in the backlog
The problem isn’t limited to newborns.
Robert Woodrich, who was born and raised in Windsor, Ontario, has also been waiting for citizenship certificates for his children, who were born abroad.
His three-year-old daughter, Michelle, was born in Thailand. The family now lives in Switzerland.
Woodrich applied for her citizenship certificate in February 2025 and subsequently applied for one for his son as well. His goal was simple: he wanted his children to be able to travel to Canada to visit their grandfather and extended family.
Nearly 600 days later, Michelle’s certificate had still not arrived.
She has a Swiss passport, but Woodrich says he was advised that she should travel to Canada using a Canadian passport.
The family was scheduled to fly to Canada on October 7, leaving them uncertain about whether Michelle would receive special authorization to travel on her Swiss passport.
“These children are Canadian. They were Canadian the day they were born,” Woodrich said. “I just need these certificates to get the passport so they can go to Canada where they are citizens.”
The case has also attracted the attention of local politicians, including Conservative MP Kathy Borrelli, who has been assisting Woodrich and several other affected families.
Opposition parties demand action
The growing backlog has also become a political issue.
Conservative immigration critic Michelle Rempel Garner has criticized the federal government for failing to adequately prepare for the increase in applications following Bill C-3.
She argued that the government had been warned about the potential impact of the legislation and should have ensured that IRCC had enough resources to process the additional applications.
NDP immigration critic Jenny Kwan has similarly called on the government to restore staffing and resources at IRCC, describing the current processing delays as unreasonable.
The issue is particularly significant for Canadians who need citizenship certificates as proof of citizenship for government services, travel documents and other official purposes.
A paperwork problem with real consequences
For many applicants, a citizenship certificate may seem like nothing more than an administrative document.
For families such as the Suds and Woodrichs, however, the consequences are much more personal.
A certificate can be the key to obtaining a Canadian passport and allowing a child born abroad to travel to Canada.
While IRCC works to reduce its backlog, families continue to wait — sometimes for hundreds of days — for documentation they believe should simply confirm a citizenship connection that already exists.
The debate surrounding Bill C-3 may continue, but for parents separated from their children, the immediate concern is much simpler: how long should a Canadian family have to wait to come home?
