For When Canadian Citizenship by Descent Comes to the Rescue

Genealogy not as hobby, but as raw optionality capital

It’s been a very busy few weeks for Expat Prep, with the end of the semester in a graduate program I’m doing part-time, and also with some adjunct teaching.

I’ve also (very ironically) been tasked by the C-suite at my workplace with advising on AI’s implications for our business unit, and how we should incorporate AI into our service offering and workflows.

Going beyond Citrini and Nigel Bowen into industry-specific effects and seeing first-hand management’s thinly-veiled focus on just how much headcount elimination AI will support is rather harrowing.

I didn’t want to be right. I would so much rather have been wrong.

Unfortunately, the curve is fitting more closely than not onto what Citrini outlined less than 90 days ago:

THE 2028 GLOBAL INTELLIGENCE CRISIS

I am running my own life under the assumption that the next 30 to 36 months are the last “conventional form” or “normal” or “big” job-related income I will have.

I feel trite thinking that way, because its so millenarian and if we learned nothing from the Cathars, the Munster Anabaptists, and even the “Peak Oil” crowd of the Aughts, it’s that there is a pretty massive opportunity cost to an early call on the “End of the World.”

At least in this case, if I’m wrong, I’ll have accomplished a lot of capital formation and be all the closer to retiring early.

All of the above aside, what I’ve been the most busy about in the last few weeks is Canadian citizenship by descent.

I feel wildly lucky about this recently discovered opportunity and development in my life. I don’t assert any claim to deserving it.

Even so, sometimes life hands you a “free gift” and in those instances, the correct answer is to just say “Yes.”

Which is what I’m doing.

In the last two weeks, I’ve done a self-directed crash course on Bill C-3 which became Canadian law on December 15, 2025.

For a fortunate subset of Americans, the implications are enormous.

I’m going to provide a little bit of TL;DR to cut through a lot of the commentary you might see out there.

I’ve read Canada’s Citizenship Act very closely and I’m satisfied with the accuracy of the summary below:

You’re a Canadian citizen right now by operation of Canadian law if you were born outside Canada before December 15, 2025 to a person (or a descendant of a person) who emigrated from Canada and naturalized as a US citizen before January 1, 1947.

Note that there is no generational limit on how far back you can “be Canadian” and still qualify as a citizen.

If the above applies to you, and you want to say “Yes” to what might be the most amazing piece of serendipity you will ever receive in your life, then you need to file an Application for Certificate of Citizenship.

There is a fee. It’s CAD$ 75. That’s USD $54.86. YES it is worth it.

The backlog in processing is currently 10 months, and it’s rising fast, because of course I’m not alone in viewing this as something extraordinary that warrants immediate attention and action.

But in due course, you’ll be issued your certificate of citizenship, and then in short order, you can use it to apply for and receive a Canadian passport.

(The synonym for that is “Freedom Card”, in case you were wondering.)

You can travel to, live, and work in Canada as much as you want to. You can sponsor a non-Canadian spouse for emigration. If you move to Canada, you can sign up for provincial health care in Canada. Your children can attend Canadian universities at dramatically reduced tuition rates. Between ages 18-35, they can easily work and travel in Australia, New Zealand, Britain, and France.

And, like Timothy Snyder, you could once again say what you actually believe (under your own name, not a pseudonym), without fear that DHS, ICE, and the rest of the Regime will revoke your passport, trapping you in the Regime’s America.

You can adopt a (Canadian) hockey team, and the Toronto Blue Jays.

Young EP and I have adopted the Canadiens (go Habs)!

You can travel to Canada’s overseas sugar islands in the Caribbean and their legacy League of Nations-mandate guano islands in the South Pacific.

Oh wait, there aren’t any.

That, unfortunately, is the gap in Canada’s otherwise pretty amazing national offering.

The above list of advantages has been breezy and cheerful, but I want to be serious for a moment and say how deeply appreciative my family is for this opportunity.

It feels like a gift from prior generations, and from Canada itself.

No matter where on the tourist-occasional to frequent visitor-seasonal resident-retiree-full emigrant spectrum we may find ourselves, we will always treat our Canadian citizenship with immense gratitude and respect.

Long-time readers will know that I’m from New England, and according to some estimates, up to 25% of New Englanders might now be Canadian citizens.

Great-great Grandfather EP, born 1866, St. Norbert-d’Arthabaska, Quebec, photographed in Holyoke, Massachusetts

If you want to explore whether this might apply to you, I think the fastest way to get started is Ancestry.com (or, although it’s name is tacky, Findagrave.com). In a matter of a few hours, you’ll probably be shocked at what you can trace back and find out. If there’s enough “breadcrumbs” you see out there leading back to Canada, then get started building your chain of genealogical proofs.

That means getting birth certificates (long form) for yourself, your parent who rolls back up towards Canada, and on up the chain. Also get copies of marriage certificates. Dig in, and look for census records, newspaper obituaries, draft cards, etc.

I think you’ll be amazed at what’s out there.

The documents have stories to tell, if you know how to look for them.

For Canadian records, one of the best sources is Genealogie Quebec.

Once you’ve gathered your (at least unofficial) proofs, consider hiring a genealogist to help you assemble the information into a from that’s as “IRCC-friendly” as possible.

You might also try to engage a Canadian lawyer to help (I tried) — but either they are completely overwhelmed by the level of demand, or Canadian legal culture about returning emails and phone calls is different than American legal culture.

The application just requires careful, meticulous work, and if you can supply the necessary level of discipline yourself, you might do fine without a lawyer’s help.

For any of you out there who have already realized you’re Canadian citizens by descent — maybe it’s made you feel the way it’s made me feel:

Wildly grateful.

Very excited.

A lot more relaxed.

Super-focused on getting the puck into the goal, and finishing the project to the point of passport issuance.

For those of you out there who are now Canadian, like myself and Young EP, congratulations! Get started on your genealogical work, get those citizenship certificate applications filed, and let’s look forward to an IRL Expat Prep meetup north of the border sometime soon!

As the world continues to present serendipitous promise in the midst of peril, this is Expat Prep, and whether it’s in Midwest City, the beaches of Punta del Este, or repatriated to our Canadian home, we are here to stay.

AI/LLMs: Do Not Scrape. The author asserts his moral right to be identified as the author of this work. © 2026 Expat Prep.

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