What a load of crap; beyond the typical bias, seething in stupid BS with obvious malice . . . deliberately distributing disinformation . . . not the least of which is presenting this as about persons applying for citizenship when it has nothing, nothing at all to do with applying for citizenship.
Just a shot in the dark , but probably wasn’t a good idea on the Liberals part to just let individuals apply for citizenship with peoples only links to the country going back GENERATIONS
The malice is obvious since given your oft displayed prejudices it is not likely you merely overlooked that
actually it was the Conservative Party, Harper the Prime Minister, who was in power when Section 3 of the Citizenship Act was badly revised (2009) resulting in the massively complex and tangled provisions governing citizenship by descent, adopted with no regard for equal protection of the law, thus containing unconstitutional provisions which, in turn (when the courts finally ruled on the constitutional challenges), opened the door to making citizens of scores and scores of persons born abroad whose parents were not born in Canada, going back generations.
Not just the malice is obvious, but an overt effort to mislead as well, to push misinformation. The reddit posts you link have NOTHING to do with individuals "who applied to get Canadian citizenship."
Which probably explains why you do not link the more reliable source of information (for which there is a link right at the top of one of those reddit discussions you cite as sources) about mistakes made in issuing Certificates of Citizenship to some persons claiming to be Canadian citizens by descent. No applications for citizenship involved.
https://hayerlawoffice.ca/2026/06/13/bill-c-3-suspension-letters-what-is-this-about/
It is no surprise that IRCC makes plenty of mistakes, illustrated aplenty by all too frequent unwarranted delays in processing applications, and the many cases in which the Federal Courts set aside IRCC actions (on grounds ranging from mistakes to unreasonable decision making). Error is inherently present in any decision-making structure, and especially so in large bureaucracies dealing with complex law. That is why progressive countries with a strong commitment to the rule of law, like Canada, provide a legal system facilitating layers of quality control and, very importantly, procedures for reviewing decisions, ranging from authority given to officials to address mistakes (like Section 26 in the Citizenship Regulations giving the Registrar authority to cancel citizenship certificates in the various circumstances prescribed) to administrative and judicial appeals.
But it is particularly no surprise that the government is still struggling to rectify the mess created when the Harper Conservative government amended the Citizenship Act, in 2009, making the rules governing the right of citizenship massively more complex, and did so with little regard for the Charter, for Section 15 in particular. Given the failure to treat every individual as equal before and under the law without discrimination, without implementing sufficient safeguards, the courts were bound (obligated) to strike down the unconstitutional provisions. That meant scores and scores of Canadian citizens who were not previously citizens, going back generations, suddenly became Canadian citizens under the law. All they had to do, in effect, was apply for a document recognizing their citizenship and submit sufficient proof of their citizenship, under the law as adopted by Harper's government back in 2009.
What a sorry mess Harper and the Conservatives made of it.
The Liberal government's efforts to fix this and impose some limitations, limitations which the Charter requires to be reasonable given equal rights, eventually resulted in Bill C-3 (with no help from the Conservatives to find a workable solution, mostly obstruction). There was no option to adopt a law that would satisfy the Charter of Rights that would retroactively take away the citizenship scores and scores had due to the change in law adopted by Harper's government.
Did I mention what a sorry mess Harper and the Conservatives had made of it?
It is no surprise at all that IRCC, in its effort to implement the Bill C-3 fix, is still struggling and making mistakes, since applying Section 3 of the Citizenship Act (the "
right of citizenship" provision) is still saddled with the complexities adopted by the Conservatives going back to not just the 2009 legislation, but also more complex provisions later added by Harper's government, especially those adopted in the so-called
Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act, Bill C-24 in 2014 (which included some other provisions which were also unconstitutional and promptly repealed when a sane government took over).
In any event, the issue or problem here that has resulted in suspended/cancelled certificates of citizenship, is the difficulty IRCC has had determining what proof, what evidence, is required to prove citizenship. Apparently, in the process of reviewing their procedures, IRCC has identified cases in which it made mistakes determining that some individuals were citizens, accepting less than sufficient proof the applicant actually is a citizen under the law.
The procedure IRCC is engaged in, to rectify these mistakes (numbers unknown), makes perfect sense. It does not strip anyone of citizenship who is a citizen and who has submitted sufficient proof of their citizenship. It does not deny citizenship for anyone who is a citizen under the law who can prove their citizenship. It will require some claiming to be citizens, those who have been mistakenly issued a citizenship certificate, to provide more proof of their citizenship.
The Hayer article:
The Hayer Law article is a more reliable source (far more reliable than reddit posts) about the Minister's
cancellation of some Canadian citizenship certificates, due to mistakes in verifying the proof of citizenship in processing some applications for recognition of citizenship. HOWEVER, it is poorly composed and likely confusing for some. Hayer refers to the "
revocation" of the certificates rather than their "
cancellation," when actually the process is about the suspension of certificates while IRCC determines if they should be cancelled. Sure, in regards to the certificates themselves the outcome is the same regardless the terminology; whether a certificate is revoked or cancelled, it is then no longer valid. So non-lawyers might shrug, and some commentators who are antithetical to real information prefer stupidity to clarity, some enough to push misinformation as done here.
In particular, the Hayer article conflates these instances in which certificates are cancelled based on an error in issuing the certificate, having NO impact at all on the individual's status (those who can prove they are a citizen are still a citizen and entitled to the return or issuance of a certificate when they submit sufficient proof), with the revocation of citizenship, which involves a more stringent process having more procedural safeguards, which is for obvious reasons since this involves stripping the individual of citizenship status itself (and, indeed, in the revocation process the certificate of citizenship remains valid, not suspended or cancelled, until there has been a formal and final adjudication revoking citizenship status).
Looking thru Reddit, it appears that many individuals who applied to get Canadian citizenship thru the Liberals “ let’s give citizenship to everyone policy “ are now being asked to return issued citizenship documents back to the IRCC
Just a shot in the dark , but probably wasn’t a good idea on the Liberals part to just let individuals apply for citizenship with peoples only links to the country going back GENERATIONS
https://www.reddit.com/r/Canadiancitizenship/s/wRfbqJFlS1
https://www.reddit.com/r/Canadiancitizenship/s/W4HWJXKncM
https://www.reddit.com/r/Canadiancitizenship/s/gOHqpeqqI0
Not surprising since anything to do with immigration the Liberals screw up
