The ACA has sent a letter to express its concern over the unintended consequences of Bill C-3, an amendment to the Citizenship Act, on archival institutions and professionals across the country. 

Bill C-3’s retroactive “citizenship by descent” policy has resulted in an unprecedented increase in requests for documentation proving ancestral ties to Canada. As the primary custodians of vital statistics, military service records, and sacramental records (including baptismal, marriage, and burial registers), archives have been inundated with requests for certified copies of these records.

Some archives are reporting a five-fold increase in requests, and close to a thousand requests per month since the beginning of the year, with no capacity to increase staffing. This imposes an extreme and unsustainable burden on archival professionals. 

We asked the government for the following: 

1. Provide Clear Guidance on the viability of using mid-19th-century or even earlier historic records for citizenship purposes (e.g., does having a Canadian great-great grandfather qualify you for citizenship?). If these records do not meet the evidentiary threshold for IRCC, we urge the Government to issue a formal statement to that effect. 

2. Restore Funding to the DHCP: It is a contradiction to drastically increase the work of archival institutions while simultaneously cutting what little government funding they can apply for. Many of the organizations most affected by these changes are those who desperately need the Documentary Heritage Communities Program. 

Read our full letter here.