At their weekend convention in Halifax, the Conservative Party of Canada approved a resolution to “enact legislation which will fully eliminate birthright citizenship in Canada unless one of the parents of the child born in Canada is a Canadian citizen or permanent resident of Canada.” In a subsequent statement, Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer said the measure was designed to “end birth tourism.”
Most of the world does not grant automatic birth citizenship.
If a French woman goes into labour while changing planes at Pearson International Airport in Toronto, the child automatically receives lifetime Canadian citizenship. Canada extends unconditional citizenship to anyone born within its borders under a legal principle known in Latin as “jus soli” (law of the soil). Conversely, if a Canadian woman goes into labour while changing planes at Paris-Charles De Gaulle airport, the child gets nothing except perhaps a decorative French birth certificate. This is generally the law across all of Europe, Asia, Africa and Oceania: A child’s nationality is determined based on the citizenship or residency of its parents rather than the flag flying over the maternity ward at the time. There are exceptions. Germany introduced qualifications into its citizenship law after whole Berlin neighbourhoods started to fill with German-born Turks unable to obtain citizenship. And, in Australia, a child born to two stateless parents may be eligible for a special form of jus soli.
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