A new bill introduced in the House of Commons is offering a way for some to obtain Canadian citizenship.

Bill C-3,

An Act to amend the Citizenship Act

, was tabled by Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship of Canada (IRCC) Lena Metlege Diab on Thursday. The bill would automatically grant Canadian citizenship to anyone who would be a citizen today if it weren’t for the first-generation limit or “outdated provisions,” the federal government said in

a news release

.

Currently, most Canadian citizens who are citizens by descent cannot pass their citizenship onto a child born or adopted outside the country.

The bill would also establish a new framework to allow for citizenship based on a Canadian parent’s connection to Canada. The connection can be proven by demonstrating they lived in the country for at least three years, or 1,095 cumulative days, before the birth or adoption of a child.

Here’s what to know.

What is the first-generation limit?

The limit refers to the fact that

someone does not automatically become a Canadian citizen

if they were born outside Canada and their parent was also born outside Canada to a Canadian parent, or adopted outside Canada by a Canadian parent.

The Ontario Superior Court of Justice declared that key provisions of the first-generation limit were unconstitutional in Dec. 2023.

“The Government of Canada did not appeal the ruling because we agree that the current law has unacceptable consequences for Canadians whose children were born outside the country,” per the news release.

The Court suspended its declaration until November 20, 2025, which means the current rules still apply until further notice,

according to the federal government

.

Why was the citizenship by descent bill introduced?

“The legislative amendments to the Citizenship Act made in 2009 by the Harper Conservatives restrict citizenship by descent to the first generation born abroad,” Diab’s office told National Post in an emailed statement.

“This has meant that individuals with a genuine connection to Canada are not recognized as Canadian citizens and has led to unacceptable consequences for Canadians whose children were born outside the country.”

The legislation was introduced to “correct this, to remove the first generation limit, extending Canadian citizenship to ‘Lost Canadians’ beyond the first generation,” per the minister’s office.

According to

a news release in 2008

, the amendments made by the Harper government were “to protect the value of Canadian citizenship for the future.”

“Canadian citizenship is more than a legal status, more than a passport,”

said

former 

Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism Minister Jason

Kenney in 2010. “We expect citizens to have an ongoing commitment, connection and loyalty to Canada.”

What are “lost Canadians”?

The term refers to people who were born outside of the country to Canadian parents who were also born in another country.

In 1974, the first Canadian Citizenship Act contained provisions that cause many people to “either lose their Canadian citizenship or not acquire it in the first place,” the news release said.

Changes to the legislation in 2009 and 2015 restored or gave citizenship to some 20,000 “lost Canadians.” The new legislation proposes giving automatic citizenship to anyone denied citizenship under the current law.

“Citizenship is more than a legal status — it’s a profound connection to the values, history, and spirit of Canada,” said Diab, per the news release. “It reflects our belief that being Canadian means more than just a place of birth; it’s about belonging, shared experiences, and a commitment to the inclusive and diverse community we all call home.”

What could this mean for Canada?

The new bill could open up the possibility of many people applying for citizenship. Thousands of people could become Canadian, estimated immigration news website

Citizenship and Immigration Canada

.

With a potential surge of applications, Vancouver immigration lawyer Ryan Neely

told CTV News

that government should be certain that the IRCC’s systems are “equipped to handle the influx of applications.”

With additional reporting by The Canadian Press

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A shocking mass shooting inside a Toronto pub in March, when three masked men shot wildly into the crowd during the establishment’s grand opening, is linked to an ongoing tow truck turf war that included other shootings and a robbery, Toronto police said when announcing charges against 11 people.

Ten suspects have been arrested, and another is considered a wanted fugitive, after a fervid spree of gun violence by what investigators believe might be a shoot-em-up band for hire.

“The indiscriminate nature of this gun violence is hard to comprehend,” Toronto’s Chief of Police Myron Demkiw said Wednesday. “This kind of brazen violence, this disregard for human life, is completely unacceptable.”

An intense investigation of the March 7 shooting at the Piper Arms pub near Scarborough Town Centre, one of Canada’s largest shopping malls, led police to four other shootings and a robbery they say are linked to a violent turf war over tow trucking business that has been hitting the Greater Toronto Area with shootings and arsons for several years.

The pub shooting, however, which saw an organized assault on a mainstream establishment in a popular public area by three masked men — one armed with an assault-style rifle and two with handguns — took public concern and fury to a new level.

“That night, three suspects entered the pub and opened fire inside. Nine people were shot, and other people were injured as a result. No one was killed, which is truly a miracle, but the effects of this mass shooting remain devastating for the victims and for the sense of safety in our communities,” said Demkiw.

Supt. Paul MacIntyre, commander of Toronto police’s Organized Crime Enforcement unit, said pain and damage from the attacks continues.

“This was a terrifying series of events for the victims and for our city — a group of individuals opening fire in public spaces, seemingly without hesitation,” he said.

“We’ve stayed in contact with the victims and their families throughout. Many continue to recover from serious physical and emotional trauma. Some were shot multiple times. One person was shot six times and survived. The strength and resilience has been remarkable.”

Police said their probe into the pub attack led them to a series of attacks and other crimes with common links.

Investigators from several Toronto police units used old-school investigative techniques of speaking to people, chasing leads, knocking on doors, and cooperating with neighbouring police forces that have experienced their own tow-truck war violence, Demkiw said.

MacIntyre said it became a complex and resource-intensive investigation.

Police allege investigators linked the gunmen in the pub attack to other crimes both before and after the mass shooting.

On March 1, two suspects travelled in a stolen car to a Toronto plaza at Markham Road and Eglinton Avenue East. One suspect got out and shot at a victim standing nearby, who was injured. The pair then fled.

On March 4, three different suspects drove a stolen car to a towing yard near Weston Road and St. Clair Avenue West, police said. A gunman got out and shot and injured someone who was walking away from the yard. They drove to the towing yard and shot a second person who was in the towing yard in a drive-by attack. They then turned the car around and made a second pass, firing another salvo from the car windows.

Later that same night, police said the same three suspects, still in the stolen car, drove to a gas station near Lawrence Avenue East and Warden Avenue. One suspect got out and ambushed a man who was washing a pickup truck in one of the car wash bays. The victim ran off and was being chased by the gunman when he was intercepted by a second gunman who jumped from the car and also started shooting him. The victim was injured but survived.

On March 6, the two suspects accused of the plaza shooting five days earlier, arrived at a towing yard near the West Mall and The Queensway in a stolen car and shot at a vehicle leaving the yard. No injuries were reported.

It was the next night, police say, that one of the suspects from the pair of March 4 shootings was joined by two other men in a stolen car that arrived at the Piper Arms pub on Progress Avenue at Corporate Drive.

They parked and all three got out. One carried what looks like an assault-style rifle and the others had pistols.

Inside, patrons milled about. CCTV video footage from inside the pub shows four men standing near the doorway greeting each other when suddenly they dive in different directions when the door bursts open and shots blast inside.

Three men, with hoodies pulled up over their heads then move into the pub. The first one in carries a rifle with the distinctive long ammunition magazine curved like a banana; he turns to his left firing repeatedly as patrons at tables dive for cover.

The second gunman crouches as he moves inside, holding a handgun extended out sideways; he turns to his right, firing into a second room and then moves out of view of the camera into the side room.

The third gunman hangs back, barely past the door frame, and soon scurries out the door as the others briefly look around and then fire another volley.

The rifleman then jogs out the door. A few seconds later the second gunman emerges from the side room and follows the others outside.

Twelve people were injured, police said.

The reasons behind the pub shooting remain unknown, police said.

While the other shootings were connected to the tow truck industry, with victims being tow truck employees or targets being tow truck businesses, that doesn’t apply to the pub as far as police know, MacIntyre said.

The link to the turf war comes through the alleged gunmen.

“The shooting at the pub, we haven’t linked it to any tow truck violence at this point,” he said. “Where it is connected is the group of people that we identified as being part of the tow truck shootings have also done the pub shooting. Whether that was a one off, the reasons that they did it, we’re still investigating that,” MacIntyre said.

“We’re still looking at reasons why they did that and that’s still a very active investigation.”

Police are investigating whether the shooters were a band of hired guns, whose clients usually wanted them to target tow truck businesses and once targeted the pub.

The shooters were brazen, but not marksmen or skilled hitmen. The gunmen, MacIntyre said, were not a street gang in the usual sense.

“They’re not a gang, they’re not the definition of a gang, they’re just a collective of a bunch of guys that got together and are doing these shootings.”

Police connected two more incidents after the pub shooting to those arrested.

On April 11, four suspects in a stolen car attempted to rob a financial institution but failed, police said. Police later stopped the vehicle they fled in near Rexdale Boulevard and Highway 427 and two were arrested after a foot chase. Police found a loaded handgun with an extended magazine was recovered.

Finally, on May 26, police spotted a stolen vehicle and arrested two people inside and seized a loaded handgun, police said.

Of the 11 suspects charged, one remains a fugitive: Daykwon Joseph, 20, of Toronto. He is accused in the March 4 incidents — the double shooting at the tow yard and car wash ambush — and facing charges of attempt murder, six gun charges and other counts.

The three men accused in the pub shooting are Sheldon Gordon, 19, Juevar Griffith, 19, and Kayjean Morrison, 22, all from Toronto.

The others arrested range in age from 15 to 22 years old.

Demkiw said the shootings show the need for changes to Canada’s criminal code.

“These events underscore the importance of the law reform we’ve asked for in the past, including law reform concerning shootings in public spaces. Gunfire in our public spaces must be recognized for the harm it causes not just for those involved directly, but for the bystanders and the public at large,” he said.

• Email: ahumphreys@postmedia.com | Twitter: AD_Humphreys

• Raging tow truck war in Ontario leads to sweeping arrests for murder, arson, fraud and organized crime
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OTTAWA — Prime Minister Mark Carney is directly involved in the negotiations with U.S. President Donald Trump for a new trade and security deal in exchange for the lifting of all tariffs on Canadian goods — in particular the crippling levies on steel and aluminum.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford told reporters at Queen’s Park on Thursday he spoke directly to Carney the day prior and said the prime minister is in “deep, deep discussions right now with the administration in the U.S. and President Trump.”

In Ottawa, federal Industry Minister Mélanie Joly also confirmed the ongoing discussions.

“First of all, we are for sure in a trade war. It’s normal that, at the same moment that this trade war is happening, there are also diplomatic discussions, so Prime Minister Carney and President Trump are talking,” she said in French during a brief media scrum.

Trump signed an executive order this week doubling the tariffs on steel and aluminum — from 25 to 50 per cent — which is causing massive anxiety in Canadian sectors.

So far, Carney said his government would take “some time but not much” to respond to Trump’s latest tariffs if the Canadian and American side do not arrive at a deal.

“We are in intensive discussions right now with the Americans on the trading relationship. Those discussions are progressing,” he told reporters on Wednesday morning.

Carney did not specify if he was directly involved in those “intensive discussions.”

Ford reiterated that matching retaliatory tariffs need to happen as soon as possible should those talks fail, and said he conveyed that message directly to Carney on Wednesday.

“The ideal situation is to get a deal, and if that deal does not happen in the next few days, then we have to slap another 25 per cent tariff on top of the existing 25 per cent tariff on our aluminum and steel,” Ford said.

“But I think the prime minister is doing an incredible job of negotiating along with (Canada-U.S. Trade Minister Dominic) LeBlanc as well,” he added.

LeBlanc was in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday meeting with U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick as Trump prepared to sign the tariff order on steel and aluminum.

Ford said it was his understanding the federal government has been “working hard around the clock” to sign a deal with Trump and that it might be “right at the brink” of doing so.

“Now, we know President Trump, he wakes up in the morning, he could change his mind, and we’ll be monitoring and discussing this with the prime minister on a daily basis until they get a deal, or they don’t get a deal,” he said.

“If they don’t, we have to come out guns blazing,” he said.

Meanwhile, Canadian steel company CEOS and union representatives were in Ottawa on Thursday to meet with federal ministers and officials to convince them to act fast before the inevitable job losses that could occur in the coming days and weeks.

Joly, who met with them, said she was in “solution mode” and said her goal was to make sure to “support the sector” at such a critical time.

“A lot of the conversation was about how we can make sure that we protect our domestic market, and we’re working on solutions. That’s why the industry and myself will continue to engage in the coming hours and days, because we need to get to a good plan together.”

Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne also said he was also looking forward to meeting with the industry, and said they were “all on the same page.”

“We all want a very strong steel and aluminum industry in this country. They are committed. We are committed. We’re going to work hand in hand,” he said.

The federal government has

committed to use Canadian steel and aluminum

in national infrastructure and defence projects in hopes of countering the lost revenue and drop in exports due to tariffs. But the industry is wondering if it will be able to survive until then.

In order to speed up the process, the government is expected to table its “One Canadian Economy” bill on Friday which is expected to fast-track projects in the national interest.

All 13 provincial and territorial premiers

met with Carney over the weekend

to discuss which of their projects, from ports and offshore wind development to oil pipelines and critical mineral mines, could potentially be selected for the government’s new process.

The federal government is hoping the legislation will receive unanimous support from all parties to fast-track its adoption, but some in the opposition are reticent to the idea.

Bloc Québécois House leader Christine Normandin said her party will want to study the bill in detail in parliamentary committees, which are not yet up and running.

“For the interest of the population that we represent, we’re going to do the work.”

National Post

calevesque@postmedia.com

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OTTAWA — Meili Faille couldn’t believe her ears when she heard the news. Marc Garneau, the first Canadian to have visited space, was preparing to run against her in the 2006 election.

A few weeks later, she won. And Garneau never forgot it.

Twenty years ago, the Bloc Québécois MP at the time held sway in Vaudreuil—Soulanges. This riding, located on the west side of the island of Montreal, near the Ontario border, had elected Faille in 2004 following the sponsorship scandal.

In a riding where former NDP Jack Layton grew up, having a separatist represent a bilingual and multicultural community was an odd fit.

“We had an incredible team on the ground. We were dedicated to the community… Honestly, I didn’t even count the number of events I attended at the time, it was every single day,” Faille recalled in an interview with National Post.

But then, the race was shaken up

by then prime minister Paul Martin

.

Garneau, the then-president of the Canadian Space Agency was not launching his shuttle into space, but rather into the political sphere.

“Marc Garneau, I am convinced, will be a star in the parliamentary firmament,” said Martin at the time.

He was not.

Faille easily beat him by more than 9,000 votes in 2006, when the Conservatives took power. Garneau was a neophyte who went so far as to predict that the Bloc would disappear, “like dinosaur,” when he launched his political career.

“Marc Garneau was Canada, Canada, and simply Canada. It was his image. He was a Canadian figure. I mean, in the midst of the sponsorship scandal, it was a no-win situation for him,” Faille said.

“Basically, he was not able to convince people that he could prioritize Quebec positions over federal positions,” she added. “He was captain Canada.”

His relationship with Quebec was not always easy. After 14 years in the House of Commons, he resigned in 2023, before his own government passed Bill C-13, an overhaul of the Official Languages Act, which included references to Quebec’s Charter of the French Language, known as Bill 96.

He found this inappropriate.

Garneau, a francophone, feared that the rights of Quebec’s English-speaking minorities were threatened by a conflicting interpretation of federal and provincial laws. “I’ve said this was a hill to die on. It is,” Garneau

told the Montreal Gazette

at the time.

It took hours for Quebec Premier François Legault to acknowledge Garneau’s death at the age of 76.

Parti Québécois leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon did not offer his condolences, relaying instead a message from one of his PQ colleagues.

Meanwhile, in Ottawa, former colleagues described Garneau as a “gentleman,” “very serious,” “down to earth,” who’s reputation was unlike anybody else.

“He was so serious and took everything so seriously, to get him to loosen up a little bit was very difficult. Rarely did he take time to laugh and smile,” said his former liberal colleague MP Judy Sgro.

Even Faille was shaken. During his first election in 2008, Garneau ran into Faille, who had just defeated another star candidate: former Conservative senator and cabinet minister Michael Fortier.

The two exchanged pleasantries and ended up sitting together in opposition for three years, before Faille lost her seat in 2011.

“He was a good man. Listen, we weren’t in the same political family, but we respected each other. Marc was very nice,” said Faille.

In 2007, after then leader Stéphane Dion refused to allow Garneau to run in a byelection in Outremont against the NDP’s Thomas Mulcair, Garneau left politics.

He had previously supported Michael Ignatieff in the leadership race that Dion won and many Liberals suggested at the time that the two men weren’t necessarily the best of friends.

“By land or in space, through science and democracy, Marc Garneau has moved Canada and France, Canada and Europe, forward in the same direction. His memory will inspire us in our future endeavours,” Dion, who is now Canada’s ambassador to France,

wrote on Wednesday night

.

But the former astronaut ended up running in 2008 in the general election anyway.

Marcel Proulx, then Dion’s lieutenant in Quebec, met with Garneau to formalize his candidacy and present himself in a Montreal Liberal stronghold.

“It was a big deal that he would consider a run for us in Westmount-Ville-Marie. A huge deal. Let’s not forget that the LPC was not exactly popular in Quebec at the time,” Proulx told the Post.

“Westmount was the perfect riding for him. The riding needed a candidate of his caliber, perfectly bilingual and who cared about its needs and aspiration. And it worked,” he added.

The party wanted him to succeed. Marc Roy, a longtime Liberal collaborator from the Chrétien and Martin era, was sent by the party to evaluate the star candidate.

“We needed to help him,” Roy told us. As an astronaut, Garneau gave hundreds of interviews without any problem. In politics, it was different.

“Let’s just say he’s come a long way, like any politician, but it was a learning curve for him,” said Roy who later went on to become his director of communications and chief of staff while he was minister of Transports.

In 2008, Garneau won the election and spent 14 years on the Hill.

Roy saw firsthand his boss’s dedication and why he would never lose another election.

For example, Garneau left Montreal on a Saturday morning by train to visit Marc-Garneau School in Trenton, Ont., and returned home the same day.

He also met with the residents of Lac-Mégantic at a very emotional town hall meeting following the 2013 train derailment that destroyed the town.

“He always took the time, no matter the circumstances, to give that small amount of time to answer a question because he recognized the great privilege he had and the duty to give back and share it,” Roy said.

Garneau, he said, was an eternal student. He never forgot his first loss in Vaudreuil—Soulanges. It was not a regret. It was a noble experience, he thought.

“No matter the outcome, (all those who run in elections) never lose in such circumstances. Democracy is always well served,” Garneau said in

his farewell speech

on the floor of the House of Commons.

National Post

atrepanier@postmedia.com

• Marc Garneau, first Canadian in space and former federal minister, dies at 76
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