Ending Birthright Citizenship In Canada Would Be Good Policy And Simple To Do

Editor’s note: This piece was originally published in the Epoch Times on April 13th.

If through bad luck or bad planning you or your significant other gave birth while on vacation in Bali, you would not expect your baby to be given Indonesian citizenship. Yet in Canada, a baby born to a tourist mother is instantly a citizen.

Canada is one of a handful of countries that grants citizenship to anyone born on its soil. Ending this approach would be good policy, simple, and popular.

Though it receives little media coverage, birth tourism hums along under the radar year after year, showing no signs of abating.

Data from the Canadian Institute for Health Information shows that, after briefly dipping during the pandemic as international travel nosedived, non-resident births have rebounded.

Nationally, non-resident births now make up 1.5 percent of total births, roughly the same proportion as in 2019–20. This national average obscures the scale of the issue, since birth tourism tends to be concentrated in specific hospitals, where non-resident births are very high.

In Richmond Hospital in Richmond, B.C., non-residents accounted for 24 percent of births in 2019–20 – nearly one in four. After dropping during the pandemic, this figure rose again to 7.3 percent in 2024–25. In St. Mary’s Hospital in Montreal, 9.7 percent of births in 2024–25 were from non-resident mothers. For Humber River Hospital in Toronto, that proportion was 8.8 percent.

Federal and provincial governments freely admit that birth tourism is taking place.

The federal government’s 2019 budget earmarked $51.9 million to combat “unscrupulous immigration consultants,” including “consultants promoting birth tourism.” A briefing note from the B.C. Ministry of Health describes businesses known as “baby houses,” specifically set up to provide “before and after birth care” for non-resident mothers.

But the effects of Canada’s unconditional birthright citizenship policy stretch beyond birth tourists flying in on visitor visas.

There’s also the little-discussed fact that thousands of temporary foreign workers, international students, and asylum seekers give birth here every year. These are temporary residents, but their babies are instantly full Canadian citizens. Upon reaching adulthood, they can theoretically bring members of their family here through family sponsorship.

According to a 2022 analysis from Canada’s Immigration Department, between 2007 and 2018 around 1–2 percent of births were from temporary residents.

Annually, this works out to around 4,000 births from temporary foreign workers and over 1,000 by international students. Another 1,000 per year were from refugee claimants or from people on Temporary Resident Permits, which are discretionary visitor permits for foreigners who would otherwise be inadmissible for criminal or medical reasons.

So, what is preventing us from ensuring that babies born to birth tourists and temporary residents are not automatically Canadian citizens?

The Latin term jus soli, meaning “right of soil,” refers to a legal right of anyone born in a country to become a citizen. Far from commonplace, unconditional birthright citizenship is exceedingly rare around the world.

According to a Pew Research Center analysis, just 33 of the world’s 191 countries have a policy of unconditional birthright citizenship, and the countries that have it are almost exclusively in North and South America.

This historical anachronism is a holdover from the colonial period, when authorities in the New World sought to attract new settlers through generous citizenship policies.

In Canada and the United States specifically, an added reason is the common law, the British legal system which both countries inherited. Birthright citizenship has a lengthy precedent in common law, being solidly grounded in Calvin’s Case, a dusty old court decision from 1608, which established that a child born in Scotland was also an English subject.

Yet Britain, from which Canada and the United States inherited our common law tradition, has itself done away with unconditional birthright citizenship. The British Nationality Act of 1981 modified the jus soli principle, limiting it to babies with at least one parent who is a citizen or permanent resident.

Britain in 1981 was a different place than in 1608, when the typical person did not stray far from their community. Globalization and cheap, easy intercontinental travel meant birthright citizenship could be used by illegal immigrants or for birth tourism.

The Trump administration is trying to end unconditional birthright citizenship through an executive order, which the U.S. Supreme Court is considering the constitutionality of.

The outcome of the case is uncertain, hinging on language in the 14th Amendment of the Constitution stating that “All persons born or naturalized” in the United States are citizens. The Trump administration argues that U.S. birthright citizenship was created to grant citizenship to freed slaves after Emancipation, not to the children of illegal immigrants or visitors.

Canada has no such snag. Birthright citizenship is nowhere to be found in our constitutional documents. There is no Charter right to it. All that would be required to end it would be an amendment to the Citizenship Act.

Such an amendment would likely receive broad support from the Canadian public.

A 2019 Angus Reid poll found 60 percent of Canadians support changing citizenship laws to combat birth tourism, while 64 percent say that a child born to parents on tourist visas should not be granted citizenship. Polling by Research Co. and Glacier Media found in 2022 that 64 percent of Canadians say birth tourism can be unfairly used to access our education, health care, and social programs.

In a world of complex problems with complex solutions, we should never turn up our noses at a problem with a simple policy fix. Tackling the historical anachronism of unconditional birthright citizenship is just such a case.