Canada changed its citizenship rules. Now U.S. archives are getting flooded with requests | CBC News

Archivists in several archives reporting sharp increase in request for records, backlogs and processing times

Sitting in their archive in Lafayette, Louisiana, Barbara Dejean and Stephanie Simon first heard about a change in Canada's citizenship rules in December, when they read an online news story.

Calls from Americans who wanted to document their Canadian ancestry to apply under the new rules for Canadian citizenship certificates.

"The same day that we mail out 40, 40 more come in the mail, so it's not like we can make some headway on it. It's just kind of keeping up with them."

Bill C-3 allows Canadian citizenship for those who can prove they're descended from a Canadian ancestor, even if that ancestor left the country several generations back. It was adopted after the courts ruled that limiting citizenship to the first generation born outside Canada was too restrictive.

According to the most recent figures available from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, 6,635 people received Canadian citizenship certificates as a result of Bill C-3 between Dec. 15, 2025 and June 30, 2026. More than half of the newly recognized Canadian citizens under Bill C-3 – 3,510 people — were born in the United States.

The certificates allow the 25,795 newly recognized Canadian citizens to apply for Canadian passports and live and work in Canada.

However, the backlog of applications for Canadian citizenship certificates has soared. It currently stands at 136,000 applications, with an estimated processing time of 33 months.

Estimates of just how many people could qualify for Canadian citizenship as a result of Bill C-3 vary widely.

He said the number of requests began to climb around May or June before subsiding a bit in September.

'Lost Canadian' applications paused for 'quality check': immigration minister

Heithaus said the diocese debated whether to continue responding to the requests. Instead of refusing requests, it decided to increase Heithaus's hours from 10 to 15 a week and more than triple the fee for requests from $10 to $33 US.