Legal Options in Resolving Statelessness in Canada

Canada’s Citizenship Act and Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA) provide for access to citizenship or residency for a stateless person in the following ways:
 
  • Citizenship Act Section 5 (4) – a stateless person in Canada can submit an application for a Ministerial discretionary grant of citizenship to alleviate special and unusual hardship.

Under Section 5(4) of the Citizenship Act, the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship has the discretion to grant citizenship to a person to alleviate cases of special and unusual hardship. Canada’s Citizenship Act now stipulates that the Minister may, at their discretion, grant citizenship to any person for special and unusual hardship including cases of statelessness. Statelessness has been added as a stand-alone ground that can be considered for a discretionary grant of citizenship.
  • Citizenship Act Section 5 (5) – second generation born abroad children born on or after April 17, 2009, who would otherwise be stateless, can apply for Canadian citizenship if they
    • have a birth parent who was a citizen at the time of the birth;
    • are less than 23 years of age;
    • have been physically present in Canada for at least 1,095 days during the four years immediately before the date of application;
    • have always been stateless; and
    • have not been convicted of specific criminal offenses.

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  • IRPA Section 25.1 - a foreign national can submit and an application for a Ministerial discretionary grant of permanent residency on humanitarian and compassionate grounds. 

Following the amendments made to the Citizenship Act stipulating statelessness as a factor of consideration in Ministerial grants for citizenship due to special and usual hardship, Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada published a definition of statelessness and added to its guidelines on humanitarian and compassionate applications information for establishing proof of statelessness, including what documentation and correspondence serves as evidence.  Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada defines a stateless person as
“a person who is not considered to be a national of any state under the operation of its law. To be stateless is to be without nationality or citizenship.”

​Furthermore, IRCC has included a definition of de jure and de facto stateless persons:

​Stateless persons include the de jure stateless and the de facto stateless. De jure statelessness refers to a person who is not considered a national by any state under the operation of its law. That is, no state recognizes the person as its own national. De facto statelessness refers to a person with an ineffective nationality or who cannot establish their nationality. In such cases, a person still holds a nationality, but they do not receive any of the benefits generally associated with nationality.



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