Bill C-274 Citizenship Immigration Refugee Protection Act
C-274 An Act to Amend the Citizenship Act and the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act
Bill Type: Private Member’s Bill
Bill Sponsor: Jenny Kwan (Vancouver East)
Status: Outside the Order of Precedence — Introduced April 20, 2026. This bill hasn't passed yet.
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WHO GAINS POWER
- The Minister of Immigration gains authority to grant citizenship to former crown wards who meet the eligibility criteria
- The Minister may waive any eligibility requirement on compassionate grounds, at their discretion
- ⚠️ The compassionate waiver has no criteria — the Minister decides case by case with no defined standards written into the Bill
WHO LOSES POWER
- Immigration enforcement loses the ability to remove a former crown ward while a citizenship application under this Bill is pending
- A removal order becomes void if citizenship is granted — enforcement cannot be reinstated
WHO GAINS MONEY
- Former crown wards who gain citizenship gain full access to health care, education and employment without immigration status barriers
- Legal aid and immigration services gain a defined pathway to work with this population
WHO LOSES MONEY
- No direct financial cost mechanism is identified in the Bill
- ⚠️ Processing costs are not addressed — the Bill creates a new citizenship application stream with no funding framework attached
THE CATCH
- ⚠️ Self-reported proof — a written statement by the applicant is accepted as proof of having been in care, unless the Minister determines otherwise on a balance of probabilities. No independent verification is required by default
- ⚠️ "Ordinarily resident" is not defined in this Bill — residency determination is left to existing regulatory interpretation
- The Bill applies only to those who aged out of care without being returned to a parent — those returned within 365 days of turning 18 are excluded
- ⚠️No National data exists on how many former crown wards are under removal orders or have been deported— the Bill creates a citizenship pathway without any baseline count of who it affects or how many people are currently at risk.
- ⚠️Provincial child welfare agencies and federal immigration authorities do not share data— a child's immigration status is not tracked as part of their welfare file, and IRCC has no mechanism to identify former crown wards when issuing removal orders.