In case you needed another reason why the Minister's oral statements are unreliable....

This is from 2018, but I think it's even more relevant today, especially with IRCC's long delays in processing applications.

A very detailed law journal article on an issue that faces many Canadians by Descent.

This is the same text-based story from this morning, but it was apparently covered on "The National" this evening. They still say that the delay cannot be explained by Bill C-3.

Welcome to r/CanadianbyDescent

To keep this community a high-quality space for discussion, we rely on a combination of community voting and strict enforcement of our core rules. Please read through these guidelines before posting or commenting.

The Power is in Your Hands: Upvote and Downvote

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Rule #1: No Personal Attacks/Insults

The Rule: Personal attacks, insults, and targeting an individual or a group that participates in this forum rather than the issues and arguments themselves are strictly prohibited.

What it Means & Examples

An ad hominem attack is a logical fallacy where someone attacks the character, motive, or traits of the person making an argument instead of addressing the substance of the argument itself.

• The "You" Test: As a general rule of thumb, any comment that includes the word "you" combined with any kind of insult is highly likely to be an ad hominem attack because it shifts the focus onto the person. "You are (an idiot/unkind/self-centered/egocentric/whiner/etc.)."
• Group Insults: This rule also applies to insults directed at people holding a specific view (especially if that view has already been expressed or is common in this group), or insults directed at a demographic or group commonly found in this community.
• If in doubt, run your comment or post through an AI. AI is fairly good at identifying ad hominem attacks.

Why We Have This Rule

We enforce this for two major reasons:

1. It keeps discussions on the rails: Personal attacks are the number one reason internet conversations degenerate. Without this rule, threads rapidly devolve into screaming matches that inevitably end with Godwin's Law.
2. It prevents logical fallacies: Attacking a person does nothing to prove their argument wrong. Even if someone is an [whatever], they may still be right about this one thing.

Enforcement

• Serious/Intentional Violations: Will result in an immediate ban and deletion of the post at the moderators' discretion.
• Less Serious Violations: Will result in the deletion of the post or comment.

Rule #2: Do Not Respond to Personal Attacks/Insults

If you are the target of an insult or spot someone violating Rule #1, do not respond to the attack. Instead, take the following steps:

• Report It: Hit the report button immediately. It may take us a while, but the mods will handle it and clean it up. If you engage and fire back, it makes the clean-up process much harder for the mod team.
• Consider Blocking: If someone insults you, consider simply blocking them rather than responding at all. They will never see another post from you and you will never see another post from them. Your peace of mind is worth more than a flame war.

Enforcement

• Serious/Intentional Violations: Will result in an immediate ban and deletion of the post at the moderators' discretion.
• Less Serious Violations: Will result in the deletion of the post or comment.

Rule #3: No Argument from Authority

The Rule: Do not rely on your status, credentials, or personal identity to validate your argument.

What it Means

An argument from authority occurs when someone claims a statement must be true because it comes from an "expert" or a position of power, rather than proving it with evidence.

• Show, Don't Tell: If you possess genuine authority or expertise on a subject, you should demonstrate it through the depth, facts, and logic of your post—not by simply claiming the title.
• The Internet Reality: On the internet, anyone can claim to be anyone. Credentials cannot be easily verified in an anonymous forum, making them an unreliable basis for debate.
• The Rule #1 Trap: Arguments from authority actively invite violations of Rule #1. When a poster claims authority, responders are far more likely to attack the poster's claimed credentials or motives rather than focusing on the actual merits of the argument.

Enforcement & Mental Model

• Action: Violations of Rule #3 will not result in any moderator actions (no deletions or bans), unless it results in a response that violates Rule #1 (or appears very likely to do so). This is an intellectual guideline rather than a punishable offense.
• The "Santa" Mindset: We want everyone in this community to be fully aware of this rule and to use a specific mental model when reading posts: Whenever someone makes a claim of authority, simply imagine they are claiming to be Santa Claus with a Ph.D. in Giftology. Since you cannot verify their identity, treat the claim with the exact same level of skepticism and redirect your attention entirely to whether their actual argument holds water. We want the community to naturally identify this fallacy and counter it with pure logic.

We also enforce all Reddit Platform rules as required by Reddit.

Thank you for helping us keep this subreddit a place for sharp ideas and respectful debates!

In the next few weeks, we will be having an AMA (Ask Me Anything) with two of the most prominent lawyers in Canada who are doing Proof of Citizenship applications. This will be your chance to ask lawyers who work in this field anything you want about the process.

For people who don't know, an AMA is a text-based based on Reddit. I would post an OP introducing the participants, and then people would ask questions by posting comments. The participants would then go through each of the comments and respond to them. If you want to see what that looks like, please check out this AMA as an example:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Counterpart/comments/fkr8k5/justin_marks_spoiler_ama_thursday_319_5pm_pst/

Before I do the formal announcement, however, I'd like your help! If you would like to attend, please let me know what day and times would work best for you! Is Friday evening better? Saturday morning? Sunday at Noon?

Please let me know in the comments.

Welcome to r/CanadianbyDescent

To keep this community a high-quality space for discussion, we rely on a combination of community voting and strict enforcement of our core rules. Please read through these guidelines before posting or commenting.

The Power is in Your Hands: Upvote and Downvote

We want our community to actively shape the front page. Please use Reddit’s built-in moderation tools—upvote content that adds value, fosters great discussion, or brings high-quality insights, and downvote content that is off-topic, lazy, or low-effort. Your votes are the first line of defense.

Rule #1: No Personal Attacks/Insults

The Rule: Personal attacks, insults, and targeting an individual or a group that participates in this forum rather than the issues and arguments themselves are strictly prohibited.

What it Means & Examples

An ad hominem attack is a logical fallacy where someone attacks the character, motive, or traits of the person making an argument instead of addressing the substance of the argument itself.

• The "You" Test: As a general rule of thumb, any comment that includes the word "you" combined with any kind of insult is highly likely to be an ad hominem attack because it shifts the focus onto the person. "You are (an idiot/unkind/self-centered/egocentric/whiner/etc.)."
• Group Insults: This rule also applies to insults directed at people holding a specific view (especially if that view has already been expressed or is common in this group), or insults directed at a demographic or group commonly found in this community.
• If in doubt, run your comment or post through an AI. AI is fairly good at identifying ad hominem attacks.

Why We Have This Rule

We enforce this for two major reasons:

1. It keeps discussions on the rails: Personal attacks are the number one reason internet conversations degenerate. Without this rule, threads rapidly devolve into screaming matches that inevitably end with Godwin's Law.
2. It prevents logical fallacies: Attacking a person does nothing to prove their argument wrong. Even if someone is an [whatever], they may still be right about this one thing.

Enforcement

• Serious/Intentional Violations: Will result in an immediate ban and deletion of the post at the moderators' discretion.
• Less Serious Violations: Will result in the deletion of the post or comment.

Rule #2: Do Not Respond to Personal Attacks/Insults

If you are the target of an insult or spot someone violating Rule #1, do not respond to the attack. Instead, take the following steps:

• Report It: Hit the report button immediately. It may take us a while, but the mods will handle it and clean it up. If you engage and fire back, it makes the clean-up process much harder for the mod team.
• Consider Blocking: If someone insults you, consider simply blocking them rather than responding at all. They will never see another post from you and you will never see another post from them. Your peace of mind is worth more than a flame war.

Enforcement

• Serious/Intentional Violations: Will result in an immediate ban and deletion of the post at the moderators' discretion.
• Less Serious Violations: Will result in the deletion of the post or comment.

Rule #3: No Argument from Authority

The Rule: Do not rely on your status, credentials, or personal identity to validate your argument.

What it Means

An argument from authority occurs when someone claims a statement must be true because it comes from an "expert" or a position of power, rather than proving it with evidence.

• Show, Don't Tell: If you possess genuine authority or expertise on a subject, you should demonstrate it through the depth, facts, and logic of your post—not by simply claiming the title.
• The Internet Reality: On the internet, anyone can claim to be anyone. Credentials cannot be easily verified in an anonymous forum, making them an unreliable basis for debate.
• The Rule #1 Trap: Arguments from authority actively invite violations of Rule #1. When a poster claims authority, responders are far more likely to attack the poster's claimed credentials or motives rather than focusing on the actual merits of the argument.

Enforcement & Mental Model

• Action: Violations of Rule #3 will not result in any moderator actions (no deletions or bans), unless it results in a response that violates Rule #1 (or appears very likely to do so). This is an intellectual guideline rather than a punishable offense.
• The "Santa" Mindset: We want everyone in this community to be fully aware of this rule and to use a specific mental model when reading posts: Whenever someone makes a claim of authority, simply imagine they are claiming to be Santa Claus with a Ph.D. in Giftology. Since you cannot verify their identity, treat the claim with the exact same level of skepticism and redirect your attention entirely to whether their actual argument holds water. We want the community to naturally identify this fallacy and counter it with pure logic.

We also enforce all Reddit Platform rules as required by Reddit.

Thank you for helping us keep this subreddit a place for sharp ideas and respectful debates!

Welcome to r/CanadianbyDescent

To keep this community a high-quality space for discussion, we rely on a combination of community voting and strict enforcement of our core rules. Please read through these guidelines before posting or commenting.

The Power is in Your Hands: Upvote and Downvote

We want our community to actively shape the front page. Please use Reddit’s built-in moderation tools—upvote content that adds value, fosters great discussion, or brings high-quality insights, and downvote content that is off-topic, lazy, or low-effort. Your votes are the first line of defense.

Rule #1: No Personal Attacks/Insults

The Rule: Personal attacks, insults, and targeting an individual or a group that participates in this forum rather than the issues and arguments themselves are strictly prohibited.

What it Means & Examples

An ad hominem attack is a logical fallacy where someone attacks the character, motive, or traits of the person making an argument instead of addressing the substance of the argument itself.

• The "You" Test: As a general rule of thumb, any comment that includes the word "you" combined with any kind of insult is highly likely to be an ad hominem attack because it shifts the focus onto the person. "You are (an idiot/unkind/self-centered/egocentric/whiner/etc.)."
• Group Insults: This rule also applies to insults directed at people holding a specific view (especially if that view has already been expressed or is common in this group), or insults directed at a demographic or group commonly found in this community.
• If in doubt, run your comment or post through an AI. AI is fairly good at identifying ad hominem attacks.

Why We Have This Rule

We enforce this for two major reasons:

1. It keeps discussions on the rails: Personal attacks are the number one reason internet conversations degenerate. Without this rule, threads rapidly devolve into screaming matches that inevitably end with Godwin's Law.
2. It prevents logical fallacies: Attacking a person does nothing to prove their argument wrong. Even if someone is an [whatever], they may still be right about this one thing.

Enforcement

• Serious/Intentional Violations: Will result in an immediate ban and deletion of the post at the moderators' discretion.
• Less Serious Violations: Will result in the deletion of the post or comment.

Rule #2: Do Not Respond to Personal Attacks/Insults

If you are the target of an insult or spot someone violating Rule #1, do not respond to the attack. Instead, take the following steps:

• Report It: Hit the report button immediately. It may take us a while, but the mods will handle it and clean it up. If you engage and fire back, it makes the clean-up process much harder for the mod team.
• Consider Blocking: If someone insults you, consider simply blocking them rather than responding at all. They will never see another post from you and you will never see another post from them. Your peace of mind is worth more than a flame war.

Enforcement

• Serious/Intentional Violations: Will result in an immediate ban and deletion of the post at the moderators' discretion.
• Less Serious Violations: Will result in the deletion of the post or comment.

Rule #3: No Argument from Authority

The Rule: Do not rely on your status, credentials, or personal identity to validate your argument.

What it Means

An argument from authority occurs when someone claims a statement must be true because it comes from an "expert" or a position of power, rather than proving it with evidence.

• Show, Don't Tell: If you possess genuine authority or expertise on a subject, you should demonstrate it through the depth, facts, and logic of your post—not by simply claiming the title.
• The Internet Reality: On the internet, anyone can claim to be anyone. Credentials cannot be easily verified in an anonymous forum, making them an unreliable basis for debate.
• The Rule #1 Trap: Arguments from authority actively invite violations of Rule #1. When a poster claims authority, responders are far more likely to attack the poster's claimed credentials or motives rather than focusing on the actual merits of the argument.

Enforcement & Mental Model

• Action: Violations of Rule #3 will not result in any moderator actions (no deletions or bans), unless it results in a response that violates Rule #1 (or appears very likely to do so). This is an intellectual guideline rather than a punishable offense.
• The "Santa" Mindset: We want everyone in this community to be fully aware of this rule and to use a specific mental model when reading posts: Whenever someone makes a claim of authority, simply imagine they are claiming to be Santa Claus with a Ph.D. in Giftology. Since you cannot verify their identity, treat the claim with the exact same level of skepticism and redirect your attention entirely to whether their actual argument holds water. We want the community to naturally identify this fallacy and counter it with pure logic.

We also enforce all Reddit Platform rules as required by Reddit.

Thank you for helping us keep this subreddit a place for sharp ideas and respectful debates!

Welcome to r/CanadianbyDescent

To keep this community a high-quality space for discussion, we rely on a combination of community voting and strict enforcement of our core rules. Please read through these guidelines before posting or commenting.

The Power is in Your Hands: Upvote and Downvote

We want our community to actively shape the front page. Please use Reddit’s built-in moderation tools—upvote content that adds value, fosters great discussion, or brings high-quality insights, and downvote content that is off-topic, lazy, or low-effort. Your votes are the first line of defense.

Rule #1: No Personal Attacks/Insults

The Rule: Personal attacks, insults, and targeting an individual or a group that participates in this forum rather than the issues and arguments themselves are strictly prohibited.

What it Means & Examples

An ad hominem attack is a logical fallacy where someone attacks the character, motive, or traits of the person making an argument instead of addressing the substance of the argument itself.

• The "You" Test: As a general rule of thumb, any comment that includes the word "you" combined with any kind of insult is highly likely to be an ad hominem attack because it shifts the focus onto the person. "You are (an idiot/unkind/self-centered/egocentric/whiner/etc.)."
• Group Insults: This rule also applies to insults directed at people holding a specific view (especially if that view has already been expressed or is common in this group), or insults directed at a demographic or group commonly found in this community.
• If in doubt, run your comment or post through an AI. AI is fairly good at identifying ad hominem attacks.

Why We Have This Rule

We enforce this for two major reasons:

1. It keeps discussions on the rails: Personal attacks are the number one reason internet conversations degenerate. Without this rule, threads rapidly devolve into screaming matches that inevitably end with Godwin's Law.
2. It prevents logical fallacies: Attacking a person does nothing to prove their argument wrong. Even if someone is an [whatever], they may still be right about this one thing.

Enforcement

• Serious/Intentional Violations: Will result in an immediate ban and deletion of the post at the moderators' discretion.
• Less Serious Violations: Will result in the deletion of the post or comment.

Rule #2: Do Not Respond to Personal Attacks/Insults

If you are the target of an insult or spot someone violating Rule #1, do not respond to the attack. Instead, take the following steps:

• Report It: Hit the report button immediately. It may take us a while, but the mods will handle it and clean it up. If you engage and fire back, it makes the clean-up process much harder for the mod team.
• Consider Blocking: If someone insults you, consider simply blocking them rather than responding at all. They will never see another post from you and you will never see another post from them. Your peace of mind is worth more than a flame war.

Enforcement

• Serious/Intentional Violations: Will result in an immediate ban and deletion of the post at the moderators' discretion.
• Less Serious Violations: Will result in the deletion of the post or comment.

Rule #3: No Argument from Authority

The Rule: Do not rely on your status, credentials, or personal identity to validate your argument.

What it Means

An argument from authority occurs when someone claims a statement must be true because it comes from an "expert" or a position of power, rather than proving it with evidence.

• Show, Don't Tell: If you possess genuine authority or expertise on a subject, you should demonstrate it through the depth, facts, and logic of your post—not by simply claiming the title.
• The Internet Reality: On the internet, anyone can claim to be anyone. Credentials cannot be easily verified in an anonymous forum, making them an unreliable basis for debate.
• The Rule #1 Trap: Arguments from authority actively invite violations of Rule #1. When a poster claims authority, responders are far more likely to attack the poster's claimed credentials or motives rather than focusing on the actual merits of the argument.

Enforcement & Mental Model

• Action: Violations of Rule #3 will not result in any moderator actions (no deletions or bans), unless it results in a response that violates Rule #1 (or appears very likely to do so). This is an intellectual guideline rather than a punishable offense.
• The "Santa" Mindset: We want everyone in this community to be fully aware of this rule and to use a specific mental model when reading posts: Whenever someone makes a claim of authority, simply imagine they are claiming to be Santa Claus with a Ph.D. in Giftology. Since you cannot verify their identity, treat the claim with the exact same level of skepticism and redirect your attention entirely to whether their actual argument holds water. We want the community to naturally identify this fallacy and counter it with pure logic.

We also enforce all Reddit Platform rules as required by Reddit.

Thank you for helping us keep this subreddit a place for sharp ideas and respectful debates!

I'm seeing a lot of posts here that seem to misunderstand IRCC's June 2026 guidance on documents. Many of them seem to either misunderstand the words used by IRCC or how government documents are created, stored, and later validated. In this post, I hope to clarify some of these concepts and eliminate the confusion.

Terminology

IRCC's guidance uses the terms "document," "copy," "authority," and "issued by" very deliberately and I've noticed a lot of people who argue about these issues just don't seem to understand some basic concepts:

Document: A century ago, this concept was easy. A document was a piece of paper or a group of papers bundled together with information printed on them. Today, a "document" can also include an electronic document, such as an email or a PDF file.

Copy: Here again is another concept that used to be very easy. A century ago, a copy was a duplicate of the original made by a scrivener. The duplicate would not necessarily look identical to the original, since the scrivener might have slightly different handwriting than the person who made the original. But a copy was considered a copy if it contained the same information as the original. In the intervening years, humanity developed microfiche and photocopy technologies, but until relatively recently, making a photocopy was something that required access to expensive equipment at a business or government. Nowadays, the word "copy" generally (but not always) means a nearly identical duplicate of the original.

If the context of electronic records, a copy can actually be completely identical to the original, which I think is the cause of a lot of confusion about IRCC's guidance because IRCC's guidance uses the word "copy" and "document" to mean different things, but nowadays most people use the terms interchangeably (I've even found that I made that mistake several times when writing this post!).

Authority: In the context of official records, "Authority" refers to the entity that is charged under the law with creating or keeping an official record. In the late 1800s, for example, Canadian Census records, were created by the Province. They were later transferred to the provincial archives, who now maintains the documents.

Issued By: In the context of official records, the term "issued by" refers to the authority that either created or keeps the document. In the U.S. and Canada, a driver license is issued by the State or Province even though you keep it in your wallet. A passport is issued by the federal government. In the U.S., official birth and marriage records are issued by either the County or State where the birth or marriage occurred, even though they often do not create the record initially. Nearly all official records will contain a clear marking indicating who issued them, usually right at the top.

Certified Copy: A certified copy is a duplicate of a document that is accompanied by a certification that the duplicate is either identical to or contains the same information as the original record. The validity of a certified copy depends entirely upon who asked for it and who they wanted to certify it. In theory, you could take any document you already have, make a duplicate (either by handwriting out the text yourself or putting it on a photocopier and pressing "copy") and then writing "I, (your name), certify that this document is a true and correct copy of the original document maintained in my bedroom" and signing at the bottom. And that would be a certified copy. Typically, when a government agency wants a copy of a document, they tell you whether they want it to be certified or not, and if they do want it certified, they tell you the identity of the Authority that should do so, lest you purport to certify it yourself.

How Government Records are Created

Some government records are created directly by the government. This is generally true of census records, passports, and driver licenses. But, for more records than you might think, the government does not create the first version of the record, but instead the government merely accepts a privately created record, adds something small to it (such as a "FILED" stamp or recording mark), and that new document is now an official government record. The process of accepting that privately created record is usually referred to as "filing" (but can also be called "recording"), and once the document is filed (or recorded) that record becomes a government record. This happens nearly everywhere in the U.S. with respect to property deeds, and in much of the western U.S. with birth records, death records, and marriage records. Sometimes official records and created by one government entity and the transferred to another entity after a certain period of time. This happens quite commonly with census records.

In the west, modern birth records are usually initially created by hospitals. Marriage records are created by the church or officiant. Both are created using a form supplied by the government, but the information is entered and attested to by the private parties involved (parents, doctors, etc.). Once filed with the County Clerk, they become government documents. If you request a copy of the official record in these places, you will get a copy of the hospital or officiant created record (showing their names and signatures) which has been modified to include evidence that the Clerk has filed or recorded the document (often a stamp or marking showing when it was filed or recorded).

Eastern U.S. states often do marriage and birth records differently. There, the information is reported to the County Clerk, who then often puts the information onto a ledger. If you request a birth or marriage record in those states, the Clerk will prepare a certificate that includes the information from the ledger, but usually will not include an image of the ledger or even the initial reporting form (which is often destroyed). You won't see the signature of the participants, and might not even see the names of ancillary people involved like the doctor or officiant.

What IRCC Wants

Before June of 2026, IRCC's only guidance on documents was in CIT 0014, which is the document checklist for use in proof applications. But, in June of 2026, IRCC updated one of its web-pages to explain in more detail what it requires. You can find the web-page here:

https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/services/canadian-citizenship/proof-citizenship/apply.html

The most important thing to understand from this page is that when you apply on paper, which most people must: you must "provide all documents in colour copies that are clear and easy to read." The above language means, simply, that you are supposed to submit COPIES. Not originals. Not certified copies. Just clear and easy to read colour copies. That's it.

The next thing to understand is what kind of documents you should submit copies of:

https://preview.redd.it/zvcfxgn5imlh1.png?width=1363&format=png&auto=webp&s=bca748dc4599e9ffcbb5850a431c9c0291864656

Importantly, the words "be issued by the original authority that created or keeps the record" refer to the document and NOT the copy that you are required to submit.

This is a critical distinction that some don't seem to grasp. IRCC does not care where your copy came from. They care who issued the document reflected in the copy you submit. Your copies must be made from a document that was created or kept by an authority. The next sentence makes clear what IRCC means: "This includes documents issued by a civil registry or a vital statistic office." The copy you submit must "clearly show who issued the document."

This does not mean that you must have personally obtained the copy from the original authority. If your mother got a copy of her marriage certificate from the County Clerk before you were born or a copy of your birth certificate a few weeks after you were born, you can still submit those to IRCC. Even though it will be quite obvious (from the date the document was issued) that you didn't get the copy yourself (because you were either not yet born or only a few weeks old), IRCC will accept these copies so long as the documents reflected in the copy show that they were issued by an Authority (the County Clerk and not the hospital or the church) and they contain some indication showing as much.

On the other hand, if the only copy you have is a non-governmental record, such as a copy of the hospital's or church's birth or marriage record before it was filed with the County Clerk, that is generally not acceptable (with an exception that I will discuss later). Those are "third party records." If you have those documents, that's great, and IRCC has helpfully told you that "official documents likely exist. You should request them from the original authority."

Some people have read that language as requiring that all copies must be obtained from the source. But, that isn't what this says at all. To start, the statement is conditional: "If you find records like these [third party records]," then "official documents likely exist." The word "if" means that if you already have a copy of an official document, from any source, this paragraph does not apply to you. You don't need IRCC to tell you that "official documents likely exist," because you already have a copy, and a copy is all that IRCC wants. But, if you don't have a copy of an official record, you need to get them, and the most obvious place to get them is from the original authority, so you "should" request them. (Apparently, in french, IRCC uses the word "must," but that doesn't change the conditional nature of the whole paragraph.)

If IRCC wanted you to obtain your copies of official documents from the source, IRCC would have included language so stating, e.g., "All copies that you submit to IRCC must be ones that you personally obtained from the authority." No such language appears anywhere in the instructions.

In addition, if IRCC wanted you to obtain your copies from the original authority, IRCC would include a requirement, on the application, that you either confirm that you did so, or that you specify where you got the document from. Although IRCC update the application in the last week, IRCC still does not ask where you got your documents from. If IRCC cared, it would ask.

Many people believe that these rules preclude you from using documents that were sourced from genealogy websites, like family search or ancestry. That is true of some documents. If you hope to print out the family tree page or your ancestor's individual history page from those websites, that is not acceptable. Those documents were not created by an original authority, and any copy you print-out is not acceptable for that reason. But, if you find a high-resolution scan of a Census record on ancestry, and you can confirm that it is genuine (because Ancestry shows that it came from a provincial archive), you can use it so long as it is legible and shows the name of the authority that issued it.

People who disagree with me on this will often point to the Minister's comments during Question Period. I disagree with that claim for several reasons. First, the Minister did not actually say that genuine documents downloaded from genealogy websites cannot be used. What she said, on this topic, was: “genealogy websites are not enough." That statement is correct: You cannot use the website. What you can use is the genuine copies of official documents that you find using the website. Second, the Minister's statements during Question Period are not official IRCC guidance. Third, the Minister's comments were made in response to a specific question, i.e., how many bogus certificates that IRCC had issued to people who weren't entitled to them. Fourth, if you read the entire statement made by the Minister, you'll see that most of what she said was actually wrong. You'll also find that she made other ambiguous (and largely wrong) statements to reporters in the hallway of Parliament in the few days following her Question Period comments.

Now there is one risk with submitting these copies. When you submit copies to IRCC, IRCC is almost certainly going to validate the documents using the resources available to IRCC. And there is every reason to believe that IRCC utilizes tools to do so for the reasons that I have discussed in this post:

https://www.reddit.com/r/CanadianbyDescent/comments/1vvooy4/why_some_applications_take_so_long_to_process/

If you obtain a copy that you think is genuine, but it is not genuine, IRCC is almost certain to find out. And if that happens, your credibility will be in doubt and your application will be in jeopardy. For that reason alone, you may wish to think twice before using a copy that you obtain from a genealogy website unless you are certain that is real. You almost certainly should not use a copy uploaded by a stranger. But, if the copy is from an official archive, and the archive confirms that its records are on family search, then you might reasonably choose to do so. Or if your mother uploaded a copy to family search and then lost the paper version, and she can confirm that the record there is genuine (or you can confirm that it came from your mother's account), then you might choose to use it.

One final point: The requirement to submit copies of documents from an original authority is subject to an exception: If you show that you tried to obtain your copies from an original authority and can show why you were not able to do so, IRCC can accept documents that were not from an original source. So, for example, if all you have is a copy of the church marriage record, and you can show that it was created before the civil registry in that location kept records, you may still be able to use it. I raise that point because some people seem to think that this rule somehow relates to the where you got the record. I note it here only to point out that this rule, like the others, applies to who issued the document, and not where you got the copy from.

President Trump’s repeated attempts to impose tariffs have become an encapsulation of his second term. They have hurt the American economy and his own popularity. They also range from legally dubious to blatantly illegal.

With Mr. Trump now engaging in a trade war with Canada — which has decided to stand up to his bullying — we want to step back and explain both the economic and the legal damage from his tariffs. We also urge Congress and the courts to take action and stop this madness. The tariffs offer a signature opportunity for the other two branches of the federal government to insist that Mr. Trump abide by the Constitution and stop punishing American workers and consumers.

The Supreme Court has already rejected most of Mr. Trump’s tariffs once. In February, it ruled them to be illegal, and he immediately made clear that he would not be deterred. “Their decision is incorrect,” he said within hours of the ruling’s release. “But it doesn’t matter.”

It is true that other presidents have at times taken a similarly combative approach to a Supreme Court decision. They have abandoned policies that the court rejected and enacted alternatives that tried to accomplish the same goals in different ways. Only a few years ago, President Joe Biden did so with student debt. “The Supreme Court blocked me from relieving student debt,” Mr. Biden said. “But they didn’t stop me.”

Still, Mr. Trump’s defiance stands out. He has twice tried to circumvent the court’s tariff ruling, imposing new rounds of import fees by invoking legal justifications that are patently ridiculous.

This is part of a broader pattern, in two ways. First, he has tried to get around court rulings far more often than his predecessors. With lower courts, he has openly flouted judges’ decisions, including in January, when he violated nearly 100 court orders related to immigration. With the Supreme Court, he has been more respectful but has still engaged in “legalistic noncompliance,” as the scholars Daniel T. Deacon and Leah M. Litman have written. It involves “an array of specious legal arguments and legalisms in an attempt to conceal what is actually widespread resistance to judicial oversight.” Mr. Trump has taken this approach with tariffs, immigration and funding freezes.

Second, several of Mr. Trump’s individual justifications are far flimsier than those that past presidents have attempted. His latest round of global tariffs offers an example. The administration’s rationale for them is a section of a 1974 law that empowers a president to enact tariffs against countries that import goods made with forced labor. Last month, the administration cited the law to impose tariffs on nearly all goods entering the United States. That round of tariffs is a successor to the similarly sized tariff level that the Supreme Court rejected in February, as well as a temporary tariff Mr. Trump imposed after the decision. A panel of federal judges ruled that temporary tariff to be illegal as well.

Some countries do deserve scrutiny for importing goods made with forced labor. One major source of forced labor is China, which has compelled residents of Xinjiang, a predominantly Muslim region, to produce cotton, car parts and other items. Yet federal law already empowers the government to address forced labor in other ways, including by simply blocking the entry of goods made with such labor. Mr. Trump has used a genuine problem as an excuse to apply tariffs to more than 80 countries that are collectively responsible for more than 99 percent of American imports.

He is effectively claiming that products made with forced labor are a major issue in Canada, Japan, South Korea, Britain, France and dozens of other countries. The tariffs apply even to Norway, which has been a pioneer in fighting forced labor around the world.

Then there is the sketchy rationale for his latest tariff on Canadian goods. The president invoked part of a 1930 law that has never been used before to impose tariffs, while ignoring more recent laws — as well as the trade agreement that his first administration negotiated with Canada. He has imposed a 50 percent tariff on many Canadian goods by claiming that Canada has discriminated against American goods, even though his administration started the trade dispute. And Canada is not exactly responsible for the legitimate problems with American trade policy in recent decades. It is the largest buyer of American exports.

Congress can play a vital role here.

Even many Republicans in Congress are unhappy about the tariffs, and they have the power to halt them. They can start with public criticism, which will raise the political cost for Mr. Trump of keeping the tariffs in place. If he does not yield, they should pass new laws closing the loopholes he has used. In the case of the Canada tariffs, Congress should pass legislation to make clear that he cannot use the 1930 law to enact sweeping tariffs.

Judges can act, too, especially on the forced-labor tariffs. They are now before the Court of International Trade, a federal body, and it should swiftly rule on them. As the leaders of 25 U.S. states argued in a legal filing, “The tariff action is arbitrary, capricious and contrary to law.” The administration’s claims about forced labor “make a mockery of the statute used to justify them.”

While federal judges have often done an admirable job of trying to respond to Mr. Trump’s illegal policies, the tariff cases highlight a core problem: Mr. Trump’s legalistic noncompliance moves more quickly than the courts do. When a judge rules one Trump policy to be illegal, he replaces it with a new one accomplishing similar aims.

Eventually, the forced-labor tariffs will probably go back to the Supreme Court, which needs to become nimbler about protecting the Constitution from Mr. Trump’s disrespect for the balance of power among the three branches of government. The justices have shown themselves willing to stand up to some of Mr. Trump’s worst abuses of power, on tariffs, birthright citizenship and false claims of election fraud. Yet they have sometimes shown an unfortunate deference to him and even undercut lower-court judges trying to uphold the law.

When Mr. Biden was president, the court quickly acted to halt several policies it considered illegal, including his second attempt at student-loan forgiveness. When faced with blatant defiance of the law from Mr. Trump, however, the court’s Republican-appointed majority sometimes takes its time or demurs. In the meantime, Mr. Trump’s policies do damage.

After the Supreme Court threw out Mr. Trump’s original tariff policy, the average effective tariff rate on U.S. imports fell to 7 percent, from 14 percent, according to the Yale Budget Lab. The rate has since risen to 11 percent.

In economic terms, the policy has so far been a disappointment. The tariffs have raised prices on many goods, without producing a revival in manufacturing employment. Overall job growth and economic growth have slowed in recent months. Instead of pulling back in response, Mr. Trump has doubled down on his trade war. Incredibly, the 1930 law that he has used to justify the Canadian tariffs is the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, a law notorious for contributing to the Great Depression.

The even more important principle, though, is the constitutional one. Mr. Trump is breaking the law. Congress and the judiciary need to respond.

Mark Carney is governing through paradox. Canada’s largest trading partner, the United States, is led by an unreliable man who uses trade barriers as a weapon. For Canada, diversification of trade partners is wise, but takes time. Building infrastructure needed to serve new markets requires significant investment. And yet little would do more to get that investment flowing than a trade deal with the United States.

Such a deal is proving elusive. Minutes before midnight on August 21st, two days after Donald Trump said that “a very good deal for both parties” was all but done, Canada’s prime minister abandoned the talks, allowing fresh American tariffs of 50% to come into force on a range of Canadian exports worth $20bn. Mr Trump’s price for a return to more normal trade relations was too high, despite the benefits. “Our goal has been to secure the best deal for Canadians,” Mr Carney said in televised remarks on August 22nd, “never a deal at any price or on any deadline.” Mr Trump retorted on Saturday that Canada wants “the benefits of being a State, without being one”.

The plan seems to be to buy time, and to keep negotiating. Canada will match the new American tariffs “dollar-for-dollar”, but delay that retaliation until September 8th. David Colletto, the boss of Abacus Data, a polling firm, believes support for Mr Carney will soar as a result of this escalation. The political risk that comes with signing a trade deal that Canadians cannot stomach is far higher than that from Mr Trump’s tariffs.

But however bad Mr Trump’s deal might have been for Canada in the long run, declining it and letting new tariffs come into force will hurt in the short term. The Canadian economy at last grew by 0.8% in the second quarter of this year, having contracted and stagnated in 2025 after the first round of tariffs. Unemployment hit a two-year low of 6.4% in July, but inflation was creeping up. Mr Colletto points out that almost two thirds of Canadian voters cite the cost of living as their most important issue. Nothing else comes close. “The threat,” says Mr Colletto, “is not that Canadians tire of the fight. It is that the fight collides with the cost of living.”

That seems unavoidable. Trevor Tombe, an economist at the University of Calgary, estimates that Mr Trump’s new tariffs will push inflation to 4%. Some 90,000 Canadians could lose their jobs, bringing the unemployment rate up to 7%. And that does not account for damage caused by any retaliatory tariffs.

If Mr Carney follows through on September 8th, retaliation comes with domestic political risks as much as economic ones. Some provincial premiers, such as Doug Ford in Ontario, are gung-ho; in July Mr Ford said that Canada could “dismantle the US, if we wanted to” by cutting off energy supplies. But others, particularly Danielle Smith, the premier of Alberta, are much quieter. Alberta provides the United States with about half of its imported oil and has been almost entirely spared from Mr Trump’s duties so far.

Mr Carney has previously ruled out the weaponisation of Canada’s energy exports, perhaps in part because doing so might irritate Ms Smith’s constituents. In October Albertans will vote in a referendum that asks whether they are happy to remain in Canada or would prefer to hold a binding referendum on secession. Even if Mr Ford is partially right that Canada’s energy exports give it leverage over the United States, it is not leverage that can be used without risking enormous self-harm. The effects of Canada’s federal government cutting off rich Albertans from their biggest customer are hard to predict, but it is unlikely to help the argument for the province to remain in Canada.

Provincial politics also explain part of Mr Carney’s motivation for declining Mr Trump’s deal. Quebecers will vote in October for a new provincial government. Public opinion surveys suggest the separatist Parti Québécois holds a slim lead. Mr Carney says the United States wanted to water down measures protecting Canada’s French-language and culture, a demand which, if acquiesced to, might have ignited and empowered separatism in Quebec, too.

And so Mr Carney has chosen grinding economic pain for Canadians over fast, risky relief or cathartic retaliation. With every week of that pain, the midterm elections in the United States draw closer. Mr Carney must hope that American politics, and its own cost-of-living issues exacerbated by higher prices on Canadian imports, push Mr Trump back to the negotiating table with a mind, at last, to give Canada some stability. 

Word count: 755

Copyright The Economist Intelligence Unit N.A., Incorporated 2026

This is from a few days ago. I don't know why, but I really like this guy..

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I just ran across a 2025 federal court decision which goes into some detail about IRCC's information and document verification processes. It's worth a read, and lends some insight into why PSU processing times can take so long.

The 2025 case shows that IRCC has a specific process to request verification of documents from foreign authorities. In that case, IRCC actually opened a police investigation in Nigeria in order to verify the authenticity of documents purporting to prove employment, even though the documents were purportedly "certified."

Para. 20: "Applicant has provided what appears to be a muddied, torn, filled with holes letter with header Timotex Integrated Services in Nigeria, dated January 25, 2003; the only part which hasn't been muddied (but it appears to have been stained with water or oil or similar) is where the Certified True Copy stamp is."

IRCC then sent a "verification of employment letter [to the] Police Special Fraud Unit in Lagos", Nigera. Para. 22, item 2. The Lagos police responded stating: "that applicant worked for Delta Bakery between 2005/2006, committed fraud and then disappeared. - No company with the name as TIMOTEX Integrated Services Nigeria was found in the vicinity"

https://decisions.fct-cf.gc.ca/fc-cf/decisions/en/item/527293/index.do

And this law firm's web-site talks about other investigative techniques that IRCC undertakes as well, including various methods that IRCC uses to validate documents that are submitted in support of applications:

https://www.blacksyimmigration.com/blog/ircc-stalks-you-more-than-you-think-this-is-how-ircc-tracks-verifies-your-immigration-claims

Given that IRCC does not require certified documents, my assumption has always been that IRCC makes significant efforts to validate documents submitted, and the above seem to support that belief. When the validation involves Canadian records, it's probably relatively easy. Foreign documents, however, can be more complicated and time consuming, especially if the foreign agency fails to respond, or raises questions about the application.

There is an established international process for validating documents from one country to another using a treaty referred to as the Apostille Convention. Since 2006, many nations have electronic methods to validate documents, e.g., they can do it by email. Canada officially joined the Apostille Convention in 2023. You can read about that process here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostille_Convention

and here:

https://www.hcch.net/en/instruments/conventions/status-table/?cid=41

For people who are languishing in PSU, it seems likely that IRCC has sent validation requests to foreign governments pursuant to the Apostille Convention and the foreign government did not respond. IRCC may well have to try several times before resorting to less reliable or more time consuming validation methods (such as hiring someone local to consult with the issuing entity or taking the time to compare them to others on file with IRCC). Or perhaps their records come from a country that is not a member (only 130 countries are members).

In the case of validation of U.S. records, Wikipedia indicates that validation is submitted to the State where the records originated. Some states may be quick. Others may be slow. Others may be glacial. The difference may explain why some people have to wait a long time, and others do not.

The 2025 federal court decision I talked about came about from the immigration context, but there's no reason to suspect that IRCC would be more lenient about document verification in the citizenship context, particularly since the validity of the documents are the only issue.

In the immigration context, your job, travel history, criminal record, etc., are all relevant, and IRCC appears to do quite a deep dive even though you only get temporary rights to come to Canada and then have to do another application to get PR and another to get citizenship (which involves a knowledge and language test).

In the citizenship context, it is one and done, and if you're a citizen, they have to approve you regardless of whether you speak English or French, know anything about Canada, and no matter what your criminal record. It makes logical sense that they would use their resources to validate the documents, since that's the only thing that matters.

Every five or ten years or so, reporters descend on the town I'm in this week: Gander, Newfoundland.

The reporters come because on September 11th, 25 years ago, Gander was where 38 planes landed, forced down when the American airspace closed. The people in those planes were stuck here for four days. You may know the story. You may know the musical.

I've been a news reporter before. I've been one of those reporters sent to a disaster or a tragedy to interview the people, put them on a pedestal for a night, maybe say something clever about ingenuity.

It's always bugged me a little, the way the regular media treat stories like this. The people who live here, who live in any community that touches tragedy, they're not circus animals. They're just decent people who did what many of us would do.

Last night, I invited some Gander folks to hang out. I didn't record it.

But I asked them: what do we get wrong about your story, about Gander on 9/11?

And you might think they'd say, "Well, the ice rink wasn't really used that way," or "They actually all had cots on the second night."

But they all said the same thing: “It wasn't just Gander.”

Gander got the headlines because it's a small town. Its population almost doubled when the plane people came. But just as Gander supported the plane people, the communities around Gander supported the town that day. Glenwood. Benton. Gambo. Grand Falls-Windsor. Lewisporte. Towns most Canadians couldn't find on a map.

I asked one woman tonight if she thought those four days changed Newfoundland, changed Canada. She got this really weird look on her face and said, "We didn't do anything special. We just didn't do nothing."

Gander wasn't a one-time Hallmark story created by a terrorist attack. The cameras just happened to be pointed at them that day, catching them doing the thing they already do.

That's the thing about Canada. Even in the worst of times — especially in the worst of times — we don't give up on our neighbours. Alberta took 19 planes. Vancouver, 36. Halifax, 40. Whitehorse, Winnipeg, Toronto. They all did.

I've seen the musical Come From Away twice now. It's really good. You should see it. It's actually playing here in town until September 13th. (You can leave New York City at 10 a.m. and be here before five that night, I'm just saying.)

We're damned proud of Newfoundland in this country.

• Just as we are the Nova Scotia communities that welcomed Black refugees escaping slavery.
• Toronto that welcomed Chileans escaping Pinochet.
• Saskatchewan that welcomed the Doukhobors escaping Russian persecution.
• Fredericton that welcomed Kosovars escaping ethnic cleansing.
• And communities across this country that are today welcoming American healthcare workers escaping fascism.

So maybe you'll see Gander on TV in the next few weeks. The reporters will interview the same folks they always do, they'll say the same clever things about salt-of-the-earth people, all of which is true. And then they'll go back, back to the mainland, back to the states, to chase the next story.

And towns like Gander? They'll go back to being towns.

Waiting for the next time someone needs a place to land.