In this article, we will discuss about Bjorkquist et al. v. Attorney General of Canada and explain how the decision helped set the stage for Bill C-3.
For a long time, Canadian citizenship law treated two groups of citizens differently. A person born in Canada could usually pass citizenship to a child born abroad. But a person who was also born abroad to a Canadian parent often could not do the same for their own child. That was the rule at the centre of Bjorkquist. The applicants challenged section 3(3)(a) of the Citizenship Act, often called the second-generation cut-off.
The case was not just about legal wording. It was about real families. The applicants were Canadians living international lives. Some worked abroad. Some married abroad. Some wanted to come home to Canada with their children, but found that their children had no automatic right to citizenship because they were born outside the country. The court saw this as more than a technical issue. It saw it as a question about what kind of citizenship Canada was creating.
What the court said
The Ontario Superior Court ruled that the second-generation cut-off was unconstitutional. Justice Akbarali found that it violated section 15 of the Charter, which protects equality rights, and section 6, which protects mobility rights. The court did not find a breach of section 7. It also did not award Charter damages. Still, it declared the law of no force or effect, although that declaration was suspended for six months to give Parliament time to respond. The court also granted immediate relief to some of the families before it.
The equality finding was especially important. The court said the law created a lesser class of citizenship for Canadians born abroad. These citizens were Canadian, but their citizenship carried fewer rights when it came to passing it on to their own children. In the court’s view, that was discrimination based on national origin. The court also found that the rule hit women especially hard. Pregnancy made the burden more immediate and more personal for women living and working outside Canada.
The mobility rights finding mattered just as much. The court said the law burdened Canadians who left the country for valid reasons, such as work, study, or family life. It made it harder for them to build a life abroad and later return to Canada with their children. In other words, the law did not only affect citizenship status on paper. It also shaped how Canadians could live their lives across borders.
Why Bjorkquist mattered
What makes Bjorkquist so important is that it changed the conversation. The old rule was often defended as a simple way to preserve the value of Canadian citizenship. It was also tied to the idea of stopping so-called “Canadians of convenience.” The court did not accept that logic. It found that the rule relied on a stereotype. It assumed that Canadians born abroad were less connected to Canada, even when the evidence showed the opposite.
The judgment also paid close attention to the human impact of the law. Some families faced long separations. Some children were left without secure status in Canada. Some women were effectively told that if they wanted their child to be Canadian, they should return to Canada to give birth, even if that meant serious financial, medical, or career risks. That gave the case a force that went beyond the applicants themselves. It showed that citizenship by descent was not just an administrative question. It was a constitutional one.
How the case pointed toward Bill C-3
The court did not say Parliament had no right to regulate citizenship by descent. What it said was narrower, but still powerful. Parliament could make rules in this area, but it could not use a blanket ban that went too far and impaired Charter rights more than necessary.
This part of the judgment is important because it points toward the model that later appeared in Bill C-3. In its section 1 analysis, the court accepted that Parliament could aim for stability, clarity, and consistency in citizenship law. But it said the second-generation cut-off was too blunt. It also noted that less harmful alternatives existed. One of those was a substantial-connection test. The court discussed a model that would require a first-generation parent born abroad to show 1,095 days of physical presence in Canada before passing citizenship to a child born abroad.
That point matters because Bjorkquist did not only strike down the old rule. It also helped frame the terms of the replacement. It suggested that the real issue was not whether Canada could ask for a connection to the country. The real issue was whether Canada could deny citizenship automatically to an entire class of citizens, no matter how strong their actual ties to Canada were.
Bill C-3 and Parliament’s response
Parliament later responded with Bill C-3. The bill was introduced on June 5, 2025. It received royal assent on November 20, 2025. The new rules came into force on December 15, 2025.
Bill C-3 changed the old first-generation limit. It did not simply remove every limit on citizenship by descent. Instead, it replaced the blanket rule with a substantial-connection approach. Parliament’s summary says the law extends citizenship by descent beyond the first generation for people born abroad on or after the law came into force if their parent had a substantial connection to Canada before the child’s birth. Government materials explain that this is measured by 1,095 cumulative days in Canada before the child’s birth or adoption.
The government has also tied Bill C-3 directly to the constitutional problem behind the old law. Its public explanation says that, before Bill C-3, the Citizenship Act limited passing citizenship to the first generation for people born or adopted abroad, and it points back to the Ontario Superior Court’s December 19, 2023 ruling that found parts of that regime unconstitutional.
The connection between Bjorkquist and Bill C-3
It would be too much to say that Bjorkquist wrote Bill C-3. Parliament still made the final policy choice. But it is fair to say that Bjorkquist helped shape the path that followed. The case put constitutional pressure on the government. It exposed the weakness of the first-generation limit. It rejected the idea that Canadians born abroad should be treated as somehow less Canadian. And it pointed toward a narrower alternative based on real connection, not automatic exclusion.
That is why the case matters so much. Bjorkquist changed the terms of the debate. Before the case, the law assumed that citizenship by descent had to stop sharply after one generation abroad. After the case, the question became how Canada could protect a real connection to the country without creating second-class citizenship. Bill C-3 is Parliament’s answer to that question.
Conclusion
Bjorkquist et al. v. Attorney General of Canada was a turning point in Canadian citizenship law. It held that the second-generation cut-off created an unconstitutional hierarchy among citizens. More than that, it pushed the law in a new direction. It moved the debate away from blanket exclusion and toward real connection. Bill C-3 did not come out of nowhere. It followed a judgment that made clear Canada could not keep treating some citizens as citizens of a lesser kind.
Sources
1. Bjorkquist et al. v. Attorney General of Canada, 2023 ONSC 7152 (CanLII)
2. Parliament of Canada, LEGISinfo, Bill C-3 (45-1)
3. Parliament of Canada, Bill C-3 Royal Assent text and summary
4. Government of Canada, “Bill C-3: An Act to amend the Citizenship Act (2025) comes into effect”
5. Government of Canada, “Change to citizenship rules in 2025”
