According to the Canadian Citizenship Act (S.3) (1) (a), which came into effect in 1947, a Canadian is anyone who is born in Canada. This is referred to as the jus soli policy (meaning ‘right of soil’, which gives the right of citizenship to anyone born in this country). This principle has created a huge loophole for anyone who wishes to avoid the Canadian immigration processes. Instead of applying for entry into Canada as an immigrant, individuals holding student, visitor or temporary worker visas can give birth in Canada and the children automatically become Canadian citizens. Although this is not a defining factor of determining whether they remain in Canada, it is a consideration.
The loophole creates the situation where a pregnant woman (generally from China) is issued a visa to enter Canada, arrives here near the due date, gives birth to her child and then leaves Canada to return to her home country. Although that child has no ties to Canada, he/she is nonetheless a citizen and as a result can return to Canada at 18 years of age and receive all the entitlements provided to citizens, including lower university tuition fees, student loans, healthcare, and access to a passport issued by the Canadian government to travel anywhere in the world. Also, importantly, the child can sponsor the parents to settle permanently in Canada. That is, the jus soli principle creates the opportunity for nationals of foreign countries, who have obtained worker/student visas, to give birth to a child in Canada and gain many benefits.
In 2004, the Liberal minister of immigration, Marc Miller, estimated that the population of foreigners living illegally in Canada could be as high as 600,000. In 2025, federal records show that there were 4.9 million visas which expired at the end of this year. Most of these visa holders will have left Canada voluntarily, but Canada does not keep statistics on the exits of foreign visa holders. Consequently, there is no way of being certain how many of these temporary foreign workers or students have given birth to children who are now Canadian citizens and are remaining in Canada.
On December 17, 2025, the think tank, Policy Options, issued a report indicating that in 2024-2025 fiscal year, there had been a 4% increase in births to temporary residents – including women on visitor’s visas, international students and temporary foreign workers during the 2024-2025 fiscal year. According to the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI), there has been an increase to an estimated 5,430 non-resident births across the country. A breakdown by province indicates that most of these births of foreign nationals occurred in Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia.
It is significant that birth tourism has now become an industry encouraged by numerous websites and sponsored by brokers in China. They encourage pregnant women to come to Canada to give birth to their children, offering hotels and “birthing houses”, catering, tours, passport applications, medical appointments, some pre- and post-natal care as well as hospital registrations. These brokers collect hefty commissions for their efforts.
The Communist Chinese government takes a long view in obtaining obedient soldiers in foreign countries who will respond to requests from Beijing. This loophole in the Citizenship Act provides it with an excellent opportunity to develop connections in Canada. Also, wealthy Chinese businessmen who were permitted to have only one heir due to China’s one-child policy, are apparently using this loophole to acquire more children to manage their businesses in the future.
It is not surprising that 35 countries around the world prohibit automatic citizenship to anyone born on their soil. The UK, Germany, France, Australia and others have banned this for obvious reasons. The major exceptions in the Western world are Canada and the US. The Americans would have difficulty in removing the jus soli principle since it has been codified in the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution. The US is aware of this danger created by the 14th Amendment and in order to curb individuals travelling to the US in late pregnancy to acquire US citizenship for their child, have therefore increased scrutiny and FBI enforcement to screen out such actions by foreign nationals. Consequently, a growing number of Chinese nationals are now making arrangements for surrogate births in the US as an alternative to right of soil births (jus soli). Given that surrogacy is illegal in China, surrogacy in the US has become an alluring alternative for the Chinese authorities as well as for wealthy Chinese, because there is no federal law in the US restricting it, although some states do regulate it.
Canada, on the other hand, can easily remove the provision of jus soli by having Parliament amend the Citizenship Act to require that in order to obtain citizenship by birth, the child must have at least one parent be either a Canadian citizen or a permanent resident here.
The Liberal government, however, is apparently not prepared to amend the Act. This matter was raised in Parliament, on October 7, 2025, by Conservative immigration critic, MP Michel Rempel Garner who stated, “Without changes in the current unrestricted system, a birthright citizenship … Canada risks having further organized birth tourism and immigrant fraud …”. The Liberal response by Justice Minister Sean Fraser, who previously served as Liberal immigration minister, was that birthright citizenship should be maintained. He stated, “I think when you start to pick and choose who amongst Canadians gets the full benefits of citizenship, you obviously enter into a very troublesome conversation.” Another Liberal, former immigration minister Marc Miller, who currently serves as culture minister, commented on October 8, 2024, that if a person is born in Canada, “you have a connection here and you have the right to be here. I think that’s a pretty fundamental principle.”
The Liberals seems to be overlooking the fact that Canada, by failing to close the citizenship loophole, may be creating future security problems as well as providing expensive benefits paid by taxpayers to individuals who have no comprehension of Canada or loyalty to it.