Parliamentary deliberations this fall over Canada’s new citizenship legislation revived debate about “birth tourism” (non-residents who travel here, allegedly with the intention of giving birth, so the child acquires Canadian citizenship). Conservative MP and immigration critic Michelle Rempel Garner proposed an amendment that would replace automatic birthright citizenship with the requirement that one of the parents must be a Canadian citizen or permanent resident.

Bill C-3 was passed by Parliament in November and is now law. Rempel Garner’s amendment was rejected by an all-party parliamentary committee, but not before generating considerable media commentary, largely in favour of more stringent restrictions. Former Liberal immigration ministers Sean Fraser and Marc Miller notably dissented from those calling for a more restrictive policy.

While critics continue to express concern about the impact birthright citizenship has on the integrity of Canadian citizenship, updated data from the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) suggests that the situation has stabilized.

Rempel Garner and others have reached their conclusions using Statistics Canada figures on live births categorized by place of residence of the mother, however StatsCan uses self-reported data that is less accurate than the empirical data sourced from CIHI.

The CIHI figures show that, after dropping by a full 50 per cent during the pandemic, the number of “non-resident self-pay” births (children born to individuals who are temporary residents and are responsible for covering the cost of hospital deliveries) had returned to pre-pandemic levels last year, following a four-per-cent increase over the previous year.

Figure 1 captures the steady yearly increases in “non-resident self-pay” births prior to the pandemic, the sharp fall in 2020-21, and the subsequent recovery.

While the percentage of non-resident births fell from 1.6 per cent of total births in 2019-20 to 0.7 per cent in 2020-22, it rebounded to 1.5 per cent in 2023-24 and 2024-25. The percentage........

© IRPP - Policy Options