Immigration department blames 'unclear' guidance for citizenship document recalls

The Canadian flag blows on the Peace Tower on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Tuesday, May 26, 2026. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick

OTTAWA — The immigration department says unclear department guidance for both immigration officers and applicants on how to apply for citizenship-by-descent may have led to people being issued proofs of citizenship without sufficient evidence.

The department said Tuesday 100 people were told to surrender their citizenship certificates after a “routine review” found documents issued under Bill C-3 had “potentially insufficient supporting documentation.”

The department issued this explanation — and confirmation of the number of people who were told to turn over their citizenship certificates — a full 17 days after the initial emails demanding the surrender of citizenship certificates were sent out.

A statement from the department issued on June 16 said “a limited number” of people were told to turn in their citizenship proofs.

When Immigration Minister Lena Diab was asked what led to the surrender orders last week, she said she ordered an investigation “the second” she “found out there was something” wrong, although she added she “wasn’t sure what it was.”

Prime Minister Mark Carney said last Thursday those who received surrender orders deserved to know why and he would follow up on the matter.

When C-3 became law last year, it allowed anyone born before Dec. 15, 2025 to claim Canadian citizenship as long as they had a provable link to a Canadian ancestor.

Diab’s spokesperson said she would not be available for an interview Tuesday. A request for an interview with someone else from the immigration department was also declined.

The department said in its statement it has restored proof of citizenship for 33 people who received those surrender emails, while reviews of another 67 cases should be completed in a matter of days.

Shawn Davis Mooney, a U.S. military veteran, said he still hasn’t heard from the immigration department since he received a letter telling him to surrender his citizenship proof more than two weeks ago.

“I would not want their job, for one … I have empathy for what they’re going through, but at the same time it has been a very, very stressful time, obviously, for myself the other applicants,” Mooney said.

Mooney and his husband moved to Victoria from California earlier this year. He said they aren’t in a position to go back to the U.S. because they’ve put everything they have into their move to Canada.

“It’s really hard because I want to be really angry, but I’m not really angry. I’m just hoping it gets done and over with very quickly so I can just continue working and go on with my life,” Mooney said.

“It’s kind of unfair to make us go this long … If there’s only 60-some left, you’d think that that would be done quicker. But I have a good lawyer.”

Others got an answer on their citizenship status much sooner. Rana Charron said she got an email from the immigration department on June 20 saying her citizenship certificate had been revalidated.

She said she was never asked to provide additional evidence and suspects doing media interviews about her situation led the department to pay closer attention to her file.

“It was nice to have it resolved but it also just made me feel like … what was even going on? Like, what was the point in all of this?” Charron said.

“It’s good that they are seeming to try to do this as quickly as they can, although I think they could have still started the process a little better, rather than all the vague messaging.”

Charron said she encountered a lot of inconsistencies while putting together material for her citizenship certificate application and people on message boards reported getting conflicting advice.

“There were a lot people who said, ‘I talked to someone at IRCC and they told me I need to do X, Y, Z.’ And other people would say, ‘Well, they told you don’t do X Y Z,’” she said.

Mooney said while he and his husband are trying to live normal lives, they feel a sense of fear as questions linger about his citizenship.

He said he still identifies as a Canadian and plans to celebrate his first Canada Day on Wednesday before going back to work on Thursday.

“They can take away a piece of paper but you can’t take away who I am,” he said.

The immigration department said it is working to contact affected people directly and their citizenship will either be confirmed under C-3 or they will be asked to provide additional information to verify their eligibility for citizenship-by-descent.

People whose citizenship-by-descent files are under review are still considered citizens while the reviews take place, so they are still able to work and live in Canada. But some who were issued passports saw those documents cancelled and were told they will need to surrender them.

Cedric Marin, an Ottawa immigration lawyer, said the department’s approach to this situation has been unfair because the government typically needs to inform individuals before it makes decisions that affect their rights and privileges — not after.

He said people who received these letters were able to buy property without foreign buyer taxes and obtain driver’s licences and other Canadian ID, including passports.

While the government has said no one’s citizenship status has changed, Marin said he wondered whether the ability to vote was compromised by the review.

“In my view, the notice that these individuals received is arguably defective. Fairness requires enough information to participate in the decision making process, and in this case what happened is they made the decision to surrender these individuals certificates and then gave them the opportunities to provide additional documents,” Marin said.

“In my view, procedural fairness would have provided the applicants with a notice, a chance to meaningfully be involved in the decision-making process before the government takes steps such as suspending their citizenship status, declaring their passports invalid.”

Amandeep Hayer, a B.C. immigration lawyer, said the way this situation has been handled could open the government to legal challenges. He pointed out the Supreme Court of Canada has said any immigration or citizenship decision needs to be “intelligible and understandable” — and this one wasn’t.

“I think a lot of this could be resolved if IRCC actually came out and said what went wrong and gave some information on what specifically they’re looking for,” Hayer said.

“I mean, there’s applicants now where only one family member was told to surrender and the other family member used the exact same evidence, so what is going on?”

The department says a review of roughly 6,500 other citizenship-by-descent certificates issued under C-3 is now complete.

Diab’s spokesperson said in an emailed response that the finalization of pending citizenship-by-descent applications made under Bill C-3 is expected to resume “within the next few days.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 30, 2026.

David Baxter, The Canadian Press