I am a Canadian citizen by descent (first gen). I sponsored my minor child for PR but after a month from first landing we had to return to our home country due to family issues. Then I applied for grant of citizenship under Minor 5(2). I got AOR on June 2025 and it is still in progress until now. I requested for ATIP and learned that my minor child's application was sent to Program Support Unit (SPU) due to no Canadian address, applicant appears to reside abroad. I indicated our home country address in the application since my minor child is currently residing outside Canada. Under Subsection 5(2), a minor does not need to fulfill physical presence and can apply as long as they have a Canadian parent and landed PR. It doesn't say that minor needs to be in Canada when applying for grant of citizenship. Anyone on the same boat?
Minor 5(2) application submitted while outside Canada
- Thread starter Flomich
- Start date
Have you considered that the recent legal changes quite probably make your child already a citizen (by descent from you)? That would be my understanding. The requirement for 1095 days of resdiency in Canada will apply going forward, but since your child was (clearly) born before the law was amended, should be included in the grandfathering provisions.
In which case: it may make more sense to withdraw the application for grant of citizenship, and instead file for the proof of citizenship. Cheaper, clearly no requirement for the presence in Canada, etc.
(Please do check this before you withdraw, I am not as familiar with the procedure for those applying for citizenship by descent under the recent amendments to the law.)
I have thought about the newly passed Bill C-3, but when I checked IRCC website, it says that when a minor is a PR, I have to apply for grant of citizenship to get a certificate of citizenship. This means if I want to apply for proof of citizenship thru citizenship by descent, I have to renounce my child's PR status to be eligible.
https://www.canada.ca/en/immigratio...itizenship/proof-citizenship/eligibility.html
Could you specify where you saw this? I looked at the site here but did not see anything I interpreted that way.
I think this is the primary (only?) text that covers the situation for your child: "If you were born outside of Canada before December 15, 2025, you’re likely a Canadian citizen if your parent was also a Canadian citizen when you were born."
I say 'only' because the way I read it, your child IS a citizen - and technically I do not believe they can grant your child citizenship if already a citizen. (Although of course unintentional errors can occur)
I tried going through on how to apply for proof of citizenship. (https://www.canada.ca/en/immigratio...itizenship/proof-citizenship/eligibility.html) There's a question if minor is a PR and when you select yes, it tells you this:
You need to apply for the child’s Canadian citizenship
To get a citizenship certificate, you must apply for the child to become a Canadian citizen.If we approve the application, they’ll get the certificate after the citizenship ceremony.
Do not apply directly for a citizenship certificate (online or on paper). If you do, we’ll return your application.
So from my understanding, I cannot apply for proof of citizenship if my child is a PR.
But your child is no longer a PR. By automatically becoming a citizen with the new law, the PR status was terminated on the spot, as a citizen of Canada cannot be a permanent resident.
I understand the confusion, but you can absolutely apply for a citizenship certificate for your child, answer no to the PR question, and if you want, add an explanation letter to clarify the situation, and maybe even ask what to do with the PR card, which the child, in theory, cannot use anymore.
As weird as it sounds, I believe @Seym has this exactly right - and what I had wrong is that I forgot that automatically becoming a citizen invalidated the PR status.
We could do a sideline marginal discussion that would continue for ages about cases that both the law and IRCC's instructions have not yet thought of, conceived of, drawn up an answer to, etc. Short form: while their online forms are a good start, they sometimes don't cover every eventuality - and the page you got to did not address your specific case. (Because it's new and weird!)
I think they haven't quite dealt with it because ... they just haven't. I suppose they could say that you should have applied under the 'temporary measures' (for just such cases) but you didn't, so what does it matter? The kid is a citizen now, just without the papers.
And again, I think this is the correct answer. The only thing I have to add is the following:
-For the time being, if the kid needs to travel to Canada, the PR card is / should be still valid.
-When you apply for the citizenship certificate, keep a complete copy and then take that whole package and apply for a passport for the kid at the closest embassy/consulate. They will only do a rush job if travel is pending, but you should still get it done - just in case. Insist. They issue these passports - which sometimes they'll call temporary passports, or with validity only for a year or two (normal for minors esp very young children), on the basis that the child is a presumed citizen. This is absolutely normal and is done all the time - the only thing that's changed is that now the child is a citizen due to the recent changes. Repeat - IS a citizen.
FWIW, I have a child whose situation was similar to yours - except that we got PR status and then citizenship for the child (albeit still in Canada) before this court case. I've seen a comment here that what should happen (retroactively) to my child is loss of the 5(2) citizenship (which would also invalidate I presume the PR status held way back), and the child would now become a citizen by descent (more than one generation) instead of by naturalization (meaning the by descent rules would apply going forward). [For the record I think that's nonsense - could hypothetically happen if anyone had any interest in litigating it, I suppose, but there is no such party, because ... to what end?]
I can see it happen years from now, when someone in your child's situation will argue that having been naturalized would allow them to transmit the citizenship to their own kid, but retroactively subjecting them to 1095 days of "physical presence" to transmit their citizenship after they went through the whole naturalization process is actually detrimental and that they should not be "punished" by a law which didn't exist when they got their ceremony and which aimed at correction another inequity.
I'd be curious to see how it plays, if it ever happens.
Yes, I shouldn't rule anything out, it's always possible some asinine twit could come along in a few years and decide something got out of hand, and my kid would have to prove that it's irrelevant anyway as resided in Canada well past the 1095 day requirement anyway (implying then having to prove that with documents...).
Which, after all, the whole way we got here is a bunch of asinine twits over-reacted to one perceived issue, and implemented a restriction on citizenship by descent without considering the issue carefully in the first place (that people who spent most of their lives in Canada might challenge the fact there'd been no accommodation for that).
[That said I think they've rather now overdone the correction by making it open to all by descent seemingly without limit, except going forward. And that's going to cause problems, like ... what if they all try to vote? (Okay I know the answer to that, the election period is so short it's actually somewhat difficult to vote from abroad - not impossible but not easy.]
Just putting a sort-of marker down for this for others to note - that although it's easy to say that on paper 'the child IS a citizen', it's not exactly correct, and that extends to the PR status being invalidated. Neither happen 'automatically.'
I'm not a lawyer so I'm going to put it this way: the child / anyone in a situation where they should be a citizen under the law is not recognized as a citizen until the process is complete (and eg a citizenship certificate issued). With the documentation in hand and presented to IRCC (or an embassy or whatever), but prior to complete evaluation*, I think we can say that the individual is a presumed citizen, and the government would - in most respects - be expected to provide essential - necessary - services. (But subject to serious limits, like some limitation on costs, since not yet in any system to bear those costs). Need to travel to Canada and all seems in order? They should (and I believe will) issue a passport - at least if all bonafides etc.
The PR status, in the unusual situation like this? Well, presumed citizen means ... presumed invalidity of PR status. But in practical terms, I think they would not actually do so (retroactively or otherwise) until late in the process of approving/issuing the citizenship certificate. Because cancelling it too early would potentially harm the PR-presumed citizen, and if citizenship couldn't be recognized for some reason, the invalidation of the PR status would be invalid, too.
So keep the PR card for now.
Eventually they'll figure this stuff out, after some lawyers and administrators have had to deal with it. They might even come up with policies like "for those who are already PRs with valid PR cards, we won't issue a passport until citizenship confirmed, because that individual can travel to Canada using the PR card." (Or they might decide something else instead, or if there aren't many cases, maybe it'll just be footnotes here and there in some admin manual or email chain internal to IRCC and lost to history, unless it gets to the courts)
* We say evaluation but it's mostly checking docs and the like - it's not some subjective evaluation of 'worthiness.' Which might be tediously long, checking documents and validity. But for those for whom the right goes back to birth in Canada (via parents and further back), the only exceptions (I think) at present are those who were eg born of foreign diplomats and the like. (And they have mistakenly granted citizenship in a few cases like this and it got messy and legal years after the fact - if it's mistaken, they can strip the citizenship).
