Yeah, the Irish line is getting a little longer, too, although not that bad. The wait was 10 months when I first applied and has become at least 12 currently. And if there are any “clarifications” asked, as there in my case, each adds another 7 months currently.
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I think part of the problem with the expansion of Canadian citizenship is that the fee to apply is the same as it is to get a citizenship certificate for a baby born abroad to Canadian parents.
The application fee is only C$75.
There is a certain amount of logic to that, because legally the two situations are equivalent. But at that low a fee, it’s almost a no-brainer to apply for a certificate.
One estimate is that last December, 20 million people became Canadian citizens, eligible for a citizenship certificate.
If the application fee were equivalent to the fee for Canadian naturalization (C$675, I think), or even equivalent to the fee for Irish citizenship by descent (€278, it looks like?), maybe IRCC wouldn’t be quite so overwhelmed.
(I still would have applied, but I would have thought a bit more before putting my credit card information in the web form.)
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In addition to the non-Irish flag, it dawns on me that I should have gone with the official emblem of Ireland rather than the more unofficial Lucky Charms-like shamrock. Here you go:
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What’s really wild to me is that if you’re in the situation covered by the rules change and you don’t do anything, you get all the disadvantages of Canadian citizenship* (because you technically have citizenship) and none of the advantages (since you have no proof); it’s a no brainer to apply for proof of citizenship or to renounce citizenship. Renouncing citizenship costs C$100—more than getting proof of citizenship.
*I’m thinking like, if there’s a government clearance where you’re not allowed to have foreign citizenship or something.
I was playing ipod on shuffle. I hear the intro to Superfly by Curtis Mayfield and I really like that song so my mood perks up. But no, it’s Beastie Boys with the Superfly sample. OK. But two songs later … the real Superfly.
I have mulled over my “Schrödinger’s status” when traveling to/from Canada. If I’m asked about my citizenship, I’m obliged to disclose, but I could be denied entry to Canada because I don’t have the necessary documentation because IRCC doesn’t acknowledge me as a citizen yet.
Fortunately, I haven’t been explicitly asked about my citizenship, although my C-3 application did come up when I was explaining a trip to Toronto a little over a month ago (I went looking for more documentation, since IRCC clarified what they wanted to see in an application; I got grilled because a Canadian border guard questioned why I was flying in on a one-way ticket. The answer to that question was “for some reason I don’t understand, Porter charged me $20 less to book this trip as two one-way tickets rather than round-trip.”)
I both hope and dread the prospect that I might get rotated back to reporting to Canada instead of the UK. I don’t know whether my Schrödingerness would preclude getting a new work permit, but needing to work would allow me to bump up my paperwork to urgent status and jump me ahead in line a bit.
Ireland doesn’t consider you a citizen until they have approved the application for entry onto the Foreign Births Registry, despite you having the ancestral connection to the country. Is Canada different?
Canada is similar to Ireland.
My granddaughter, who was born in England to my Canadian daughter and English SIL, became a UK citizen as soon as they registered her birth. However an application was needed for Canadian citizenship which took a year before she was approved.
I know Cooke is much more knowledgeable about Canada than I am (I’ve never even been!), but per their website it seems Canada considers all descendants of Canadian citizens (born before December 2025) to be Canadian citizens under the December 2025 rules change, regardless of whether or not they have proof. When someone in that status applies to the IIRC, they apply not for citizenship (which they already have), but rather proof of citizenship. Their language on this is consistent across all their webpages (that I’ve read). One example is https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/services/canadian-citizenship/act-changes/rules-2025.html
If you think you became a citizen because of Bill C-3 [December 2025 changes], you must apply for a citizenship certificate to find out for sure. You may also want a certificate as proof of your citizenship if you became a citizen automatically.
(emphasis mine), and https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/services/canadian-citizenship/become-canadian-citizen/eligibility/already-citizen.html
Depending on your situation, you might already be a Canadian citizen based on the citizenship rules.
People in this situation (citizen without proof) have a different application (“apply for a citizenship certificate” form) than people who don’t have citizenship yet and want to apply for citizenship (“apply for citizenship” form).
@AlexioXela 's post appeared while I was drafting this. It’s not quite a Ninja’d situation, however.
Yes.
The current mess/opportunity is the result of Parliament responding to a Canadian Supreme Court ruling on Canadian nationality law. I’m not well-versed in the details, but my imperfect understanding is: many years ago, it used to be that under Canadian law, the citizenship of married women was tied to the citizenship of their husbands. If you were a Canadian woman who married a man who had only UK citizenship, you lost your Canadian citizenship the moment the marriage was registered. The Canadian Supreme Court held that was extremely inappropriate for those women and their descendants and ordered Parliament to fix it.
Parliament responded with a new law that essentially declared that people born on/before 15 December 2026 who have any direct by-blood ancestor who was a Canadian citizen or who would have been a Canadian citizen had the concept of Canadian citizenship existed at the time, are Canadian citizens. (“Essentially” = there are some details regarding handling of ancestors who acquired or renounced Canadian citizenship mid-life, and I’m not even bothering to attempt to understand how adoptions fit into the mess.)
The law, as phrased, fixes the problem the Supreme Court had, and attempts to address the injustice of the expulson of the Acadians after English conquest.
It also made about 20 million people Canadian citizens.
Thus, for most of the folks who joined the queue, legally we aren’t applying for citizenship; we’re applying for a citizenship certificate, the same as Canadian parents might for their newborn who was born outside Canada…except that IRCC will accept applications for those newborns online and in a separate, faster-moving queue.
As a practical matter, we aren’t considered Canadian citizens until IRCC signs off and issues our certificates. Today, if a government official asked me “are you a Canadian citizen”, there’d probably be no legal repercussions if I said “no”, whereas there would probably be some complications if I said “yes” until my application is processed.
I do know that Canadian border guards can see, if they look, that I have an application pending.
I’m also aware that there have been a few isolated instances of complications arising for people who are in the process, but those seem to be an exception to the rule rather than the norm.
(I do think there could be complications if I were to need to enter Canada between the time my application is processed and the time I actually receive my certificate. I should’ve asked for an e-Certificate only!!! There probably would also need to be some interesting language attached if I needed a work permit prior to my application being processed.)
It is similar for Spain.
Our daughter was born in Rio (my wife insisted on using a specific private hospital and Dr in Rio as she felt comfortable there) and it took me about 1.5 years of paperwork to get her the Spanish citizenship. I had no idea it was so complicated to get births registered abroad…but the amount of paperwork was simply astonishing (probably easier I assume if you have two countries with the same official language (English) as it was a huge PITA getting documents translated officially from one language to another).
Now I am looking into British Citizenship for them both, but this will take longer as they have quite a lot of residency rules before you qualify.
I am not an expert on Canadian citizenship rules as I haven’t personally had to deal with them. Ask me about places to visit in Canada or good restaurants in Vancouver and my advice would be better informed!
Your research is much more extensive than anything I have done so I have no reason to doubt it. I suspect my daughter was applying for a Canadian citizenship certificate for her daughter so we are not disagreeing.
I would note that she was able to get a British passport for my granddaughter almost immediately but the Canadian passport was a lengthy process.
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Drained and filled our hot tub now that it’s finally cool out. Honestly haven’t used it much for the last two years (and needed a new cover, the old one became water logged).
Used the one on vacation a bunch, so renewed interest.
Friend’s granddaughter just adopted a new dog to replace the one that crossed the rainbow bridge a few months ago!! 
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My man, Green Party candidate, won the Vancouver mayoralty race last night and the Green Party, and other progressives, totally dominated the councillor and Parks Board positions.
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Basically confirmed by Weather Channel, except maybe mother’s role. The others were on paddle boards. 13-year old was with them in a kayak. Wind swept them very far from shore. Mother told him to paddle for help (not to swim). He tried, but eventually kayak was taking on too much water. So he swam. But Weather Channel says he swam for over 2 miles in rough conditions.
It also says all were wearing life preservers, which was necessary for their. survival. But without the swim, life preservers might not have been enough. They were in the water for 10 hours even this way, with his summoning help.
Weather channel does not include his mentioning God.
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CNN and People.com confirm
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Thomas the Tank Engine has a lot of followers in Australia.
Even though I don’t think the monarchy is a good idea, the Queen was a pretty cool lady. I miss her.
I bet she personally had far greater support than the idea of a monarchy. My opinions of a monarchy may be influenced by never having lived under one, unless you count our current president, a case where the current incumbent would be rated far lower than the concept. Or why the current incumbent is proof that the concept is wrong.