Birth tourism booms as Liberals protect citizenship loophole
More than 5,400 non-resident births were recorded in one year, while Liberals and the Bloc defeated a Conservative attempt to close the citizenship loophole.
Non-resident births are surging as Liberals refuse to close Canada’s birth-tourism loophole.
Canadian hospitals recorded 5,430 “non-resident self-pay” births in 2024–25—more than double the pandemic-era average of 2,339 and up four per cent from the previous year.
The total included 2,895 births in Ontario, 1,417 in Quebec, 542 in British Columbia and 345 in Alberta. Another 225 were recorded elsewhere.
The figures do not exclusively represent birth tourists. The category also includes international students, temporary foreign workers and other non-residents who paid for their hospital care.
However, a previous Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada study estimated that short-term visitors accounted for nearly 70 per cent of non-resident hospital births outside Quebec between 2007–08 and 2017–18.
Former senior immigration official Andrew Griffith said the latest increase is notable because international student visas fell 31 per cent and the number of temporary foreign workers dropped 21 per cent over the same period.
He suggested the figures could indicate a larger share of births involving women visiting Canada temporarily.
“The number of women on visitor visas giving birth may be slightly understated,” Griffith said.
Hospital data shows a rise in birth tourism
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December 20, 2025
Under Section 3 of the Citizenship Act, nearly every child born on Canadian soil automatically becomes a citizen regardless of the parents’ immigration status. Children of foreign diplomats are among the limited exceptions.
The benefit has spawned an industry selling Canadian births to expectant foreign mothers.
As previously reported by Juno News, the Russian-language CanadaMama website advertised birth-tourism packages costing as much as $35,000. Services included accommodation, immigration and visa assistance, hospital tours, interpretation, food delivery and newborn photography.
The website promoted Canadian citizenship as a gateway to education, health care, employment and international travel.
Some hospitals have struggled to collect the resulting medical bills.
Richmond Hospital billed non-residents $6.2 million for maternity care in 2017–18 but failed to collect approximately $1.1 million. A Calgary study of 102 suspected birth tourists found they left behind $694,000 in unpaid hospital fees.
Poilievre calls Fraser a “human wrecking ball” while vowing to end birth tourism
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October 9, 2025
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has backed restricting automatic citizenship when neither parent is a Canadian citizen or permanent resident.
“If you’re coming here as a visitor and neither parent has an attachment to Canada as a permanent resident or citizen, they can’t pass citizenship down the line,” Poilievre said.
“I think that is a perfectly common-sense approach.”
Conservative immigration critic Michelle Rempel Garner attempted to add that requirement to Bill C-3, the Liberals’ 2025 overhaul of citizenship-by-descent rules.
Her amendment would have denied automatic citizenship to a Canadian-born child when neither parent was a citizen, permanent resident or protected person.
It was defeated 5–4 at the House immigration committee. Four Conservative MPs supported it, while four Liberals and one Bloc Québécois MP voted it down, according to the committee record.
“Being a Canadian should mean something,” Rempel Garner told the committee, arguing that citizenship should require meaningful ties to the country.
Liberals and Bloc stop effort to remove automatic birthright citizenship from citizenship bill
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October 8, 2025
Bloc MP Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe said birthright citizenship “is a principle that must be upheld,” while Liberal MP Peter Fragiskatos confirmed his party would vote against the restriction.
Bill C-3 received royal assent in November and took effect on Dec. 15, 2025. It expanded citizenship by descent beyond the first generation born abroad when a Canadian parent demonstrates at least three years of physical presence in Canada.
The law did nothing to curb birth tourism.
Former Liberal immigration minister and current Justice Minister Sean Fraser has firmly rejected changing the rules.
“I believe that we should maintain birthright citizenship in Canada, and I don’t know if I can be any more direct than that,” Fraser said.
Poilievre responded by calling Fraser a “human wrecking ball” who “destroyed the best immigration system in the world.”
EXCLUSIVE: Immigration admits citizenship was granted with “insufficient” documentary evidence
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Jun 26
The issue has simmered for years.
In 2018, more than 10,800 Canadians signed House of Commons petition e-1527, calling on Ottawa to condemn birth tourism, determine its full extent and implement measures to eliminate it.
Despite surpassing the signature requirement and receiving a formal government response, the petition failed to produce legislative reform. Automatic birthright citizenship remained untouched.
Polling has suggested Canadians are more willing to act than Ottawa. A 2019 Angus Reid Institute survey found 64 per cent supported ending automatic citizenship for babies whose parents were in Canada on tourist visas.
Canada also lacks a definitive count of birth tourism because governments do not consistently record parents’ citizenship, immigration status or reasons for travelling.
Statistics Canada separately estimated that approximately 35,000 of Canada’s 366,000 births in 2024 were to women classified as non-permanent residents. That broader category is not comparable to the 5,430 self-pay hospital births and does not establish how many came specifically to secure citizenship.
Britain and Australia have already abandoned unconditional birthright citizenship. Both generally require at least one parent to be a citizen or permanent resident before a child born there automatically receives citizenship.
Canada could follow suit by amending the Citizenship Act. For now, the Liberal government is keeping the door open.