Canada: IRCC says about 1 percent of citizenship-by-descent applicants were caught by the certificate review, and reinstates 33

What changed

In its first official statement on the Bill C-3 certificate surrenders, IRCC put the share of citizenship-by-descent applicants affected at about 1 percent. 33 suspended certificates were reinstated on the strength of documents already in those files. Reported via CIC News.

Why it matters

The reinstatements matter because they were granted on documents already on file, which suggests the review was about evidentiary provenance rather than entitlement. The raised documentary standard still applies: proof-of-lineage records should come from original source authorities such as civil registries or vital statistics offices wherever possible. The separate pause on finalizing new descent decisions has since been described as concluded and as having affected only a narrow subset of applications - see this Bill C-3 guide.