Canadians born abroad caught up in yearslong citizenship certificate processing delays

When Pascal Sud and Meisha Smith prepared in January for the arrival of their first child, the choice seemed simple.

Smith would give birth in her home country of Jamaica where she had family support, and then they would together return to Montreal three months later.

At the time, the wait time for the citizenship certificate that their daughter, Sofianne, needed to fly back to Canada was between four and six weeks.

But more than eight months later, they're still waiting.

Sud is back at work in Montreal while Smith and Sofianne are still in Jamaica.

"It's been very frustrating," said Sud. "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."

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) is struggling to handle a flood of citizenship applications — many of them from a change to federal law late last year that allows anyone who can prove they have a Canadian ancestor to apply.

That backlog is preventing Canadians born abroad like Sofianne from coming home.

According to the department's most recent update on Sept. 3, there are 136,000 applications waiting to be processed. Those applying for a citizenship certificate now face a wait of 33 months.

At that rate, Sofianne could be more than three years old before she can enter Canada.

Faced with this delay, Sud applied for a visitor's visa for Sofianne to travel to Canada on her Jamaican passport. But IRCC rejected the application — saying she was Canadian and must travel to Canada on a Canadian passport.

Sud gets frustrated when he reads in online forums about those who are trying to get citizenship through Bill C-3 — the change to immigration law for those known as the "Lost Canadians."

Many of the posts are from people living in countries like the United States, trying to trace their Canadian ancestry to apply for citizenship certificates.

"They're not people who are living in Canada and a lot of them, they're not even planning to live in Canada," said Sud. "There is no different process if you're a Canadian living in Canada."

Between Dec. 15 and July 31, 6,810 people, more than half of them Americans, have obtained Canadian citizenship certificates under Bill C-3. Another 20,515 have obtained the certificates under the pre-existing provisions to recognize those born abroad to Canadian parents.

Canadian citizenship certificates allow holders to apply for a Canadian passport and live and work in Canada.

Christine Beltempo is an immigration lawyer with McCarthy Tétrault and chair of the Canadian Bar Association's immigration section.

"We have known since the first drafts of Bill C-3 that this would cause a lot of uptake in the number of applications," she said. "That's become a reality at this point in time. What we are a bit concerned about, though, is the exponential increase in processing times."

Taous Ait, spokesperson for Immigration Minister Lena Metlege Diab, said the current processing time is the result of an increase in applications for citizenship certificates — but not all of the applications are the result of Bill C-3.

"We recognize that long processing times can be challenging for applicants, and we are focused on ensuring citizenship certificate applications are processed as efficiently as possible while protecting the integrity of Canada's citizenship program," she wrote in a statement.

"IRCC is actively responding to increased demand by training and onboarding additional staff, improving intake processes and strengthening workload management."

Conservative immigration critic Michelle Rempel Garner said Prime Minister Mark Carney's government ignored warnings when Parliament adopted Bill C-3. She said instead of getting immigration issues under control, it has created a "dumpster fire."

"There are a lot of people who have a reasonable expectation, a very reasonable expectation, for timely service delivery in the documentation that the federal government has a duty to provide to them," she said.

"What the federal government did last fall was put in place a piece of legislation in spite of warnings from many stakeholders, as well as the Opposition party, gutted safeguards that could have prevented this mess and charged ahead anyways."

The Calgary MP said the backlog is affecting many in Alberta, where recent changes to provincial rules to renew driver's licenses and health cards include provisions to verify citizenship.

A citizenship certificate can serve as proof for those without a passport.

"It's certainly something that I'm hearing in my caucus," she said. "The onus really is on the immigration minister to clear this backlog that we told her was going to happen."

NDP immigration critic Jenny Kwan called on the government to restore staffing and resources that were cut at IRCC, calling the processing delays "simply unreasonable and unacceptable."

Michelle Woodrich and her father are scheduled to fly to Canada this week to visit family but she has not yet received her Canadian citizenship certificate. (Submitted by Robert Woodrich)

Robert Woodrich's family is also caught in the backlog.

Woodrich was born and raised in Windsor, Ont., but has lived outside of Canada for several years — first in Thailand, where his daughter and son were born, and now in Switzerland where his family has ancestral roots. In February 2025, he applied for a citizenship certificate for his three-year-old daughter, Michelle, and later his son, so they could visit their grandfather and other family in Canada.

Michelle has a Swiss passport but, similarly to Sud, Woodrich has been told that his daughter is supposed to travel to Canada on a Canadian passport.

They are scheduled to visit family later this week. Nearly 600 days after he applied, he still doesn't have her citizenship certificate and might not know until the day before the Oct. 7 flight whether Canada will grant a special authorization for her to travel on her Swiss passport.

"These children are Canadian. They were Canadian the day they were born," said Woodrich. "I just need these certificates to get the passport so they can go to Canada where they are citizens."

Immigration lawyer Colin Singer said that since Michelle has not yet received a Canadian citizenship certificate, she is not yet legally a Canadian citizen, so she should be able to travel without issue to Canada with her Swiss passport.

Kathy Borrelli, Conservative MP for the riding of Windsor-Tecumseh-Lakeshore, has been helping Woodrich and four other families caught in the backlog.

Three-year-old Michelle Woodrich has been waiting nearly 600 days for her Canadian citizenship certificate. (Submitted by Robert Woodrich)

"Robert's children are entitled to Canadian citizenship and I think it's outrageous that they should have to wait 33 months to get the documentation that they need to enter Canada in order to see their grandparents and their extended family," Borrelli said.

Borrelli said the government should have been better prepared for the volume of requests in the wake of Bill C-3.

"They should have anticipated that the floodgates are open now and that they would get hundreds of thousands of applications," she said. "So, we're suffering from the bad decisions on the government's part and it's just not fair."