Birth Tourism Exploits Canada’s Generous Birthright Citizenship Laws

A newborn baby is fed by a nurse at a hospital, in this file photo. AP Photo/Wade Payne

Commentary

A recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling upholding birthright citizenship—that is, that anyone born in the United States automatically becomes an American citizen—offers a sobering glimpse into the legal complexities that await Canada if policymakers do not move quickly to combat the growing problem of birth tourism.

Specifically, the court struck down an executive order from the U.S. president that would have eliminated birthright citizenship, maintaining the 14th Amendment’s current interpretation and demonstrating how constitutional entrenchment can thwart reform.

Canada also faces an escalating birth tourism problem that Parliament could still solve through simple legislative action. This is good news for Canada, as we would have an easier time ending birthright citizenship than the United States.

Canada should end birthright citizenship for the reasons many European countries and Australia have curbed it, and also why the United States sees the need to end it. It incentivizes illegal immigration, creates a commodity out of Canadian citizenship, and contributes to an overall devaluing of citizenship.

In 2026, the federal government reposted a report, “An examination of in-hospital deliveries in Canada outside Quebec,” originally produced within Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC). The government study affirmed birth tourism does occur in Canada, but stresses that officials cannot easily measure its scale because Canada does not record the intentions of pregnant foreign nationals at the border.

The report identifies hospital deliveries coded as “Other country resident self-pay” as a common proxy for suspected birth tourism. These cases rose from about 1,500 births a year in the early 2010s to roughly 3,600 in 2017, before dropping sharply once COVID-19 travel restrictions took effect.

Birth tourism plummeted during COVID lockdowns but returned even stronger. British Columbia, Ontario, and Quebec serve as primary destinations for expectant mothers seeking Canadian citizenship for their children.

A 2022 study identifies the motivation: 77 percent of non-resident mothers from Nigeria, China, and the Middle East cite birthright citizenship as their reason for giving birth in Canada.

Taxpayers ultimately pick up the tab. In 2017–2018, Richmond Hospital in B.C. billed non-residents $6.2 million for maternity care; it never collected $1.1 million of that amount. In Calgary, a study of 102 birth tourists, conducted between July 2019 and November 2020, found that those 102 birth tourists accounted for $694,000 in uncollected hospital fees.

Because Canada’s public health system covers hospital costs, those unpaid bills do not disappear. They shift onto provincial health budgets and, in the end, onto taxpayers.

Back in the United States, the Supreme Court’s majority opinion noted America inherited Britain’s birthright system and should not abandon this principle without clear Congressional action.

The U.S., Canada, and Australia derive birthright citizenship from the British, although few anticipated today’s abuse of the concept. Who could have foreseen about 11 million illegal immigrants in the United States, according to the latest Pew Center research? Or an entire industry that transports pregnant women from the developing world to hospitals in Western countries?

Britain—the source of our legal inheritance—recognized this problem first. To combat birth tourism, in 1983 Britain amended its Nationality Act to grant citizenship only to children with at least one British parent or a parent with settled status.

Australia followed suit. Australia’s Citizenship Act now limits automatic citizenship to children with at least one citizen or permanent resident parent, or those residing in Australia for 10 continuous years.

Unlike America, Canada needs only to amend its Citizenship Act. Parliament should require at least one parent to hold Canadian citizenship before granting automatic citizenship to newborns.

This revision would create clear standards. Children would gain citizenship through rooted connection to this country, not by gaming the system and jumping the queue through birth tourism. Potential citizens need to cultivate a stronger sense of connection to Canada.

Canada should give citizenship to children who would otherwise have no nationality at all, but not automatically to every child born here. In plain terms: Some children are born “stateless” because neither parent’s country will recognize them as citizens (for example, due to gaps in those countries’ laws). In those rare cases, Canada could step in and grant citizenship.

This would discourage birth tourism, while preventing statelessness for children.

This policy addresses the problem of birth tourism encouraging citizenship commodification. Canadian citizenship is a privilege, and policymakers should change the law to adapt to a growing problem.

It’s high time Canada joins much of the world and stops birthright citizenship.

Joseph Quesnel is a senior fellow with the Aristotle Foundation for Public Policy.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.