IRCC Faces Mandamus Lawsuits Over Citizenship Certificate

Nine months after Bill C-3 came into effect, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada is failing to process citizenship certificates. The backlog for Confirmation of Citizenship applications has swelled to nearly 140,000 files, pushing official processing delays to 33 months.

This is a failure of statutory duty. Issuing a citizenship certificate is a mandatory legal obligation under Section 12(1) of the Citizenship Act, not a discretionary visa program the minister can cap. The government had a clear mandate and a two-year preparation period following the 2023 Bjorkquist court decision, which struck down the old citizenship cut-off as unconstitutional. Demographers and immigration experts had warned of a coming surge in applications.

Severe Impacts and Charter Breaches

For professionals, students, and families, these delays are severe economic roadblocks. The inability to obtain travel documentation actively infringes on the Section 6 mobility rights of applicants under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Delays stretching to three years or more for a mandatory statutory confirmation are arbitrary and grossly disproportionate. This opens the door for applicants to claim violations under Section 7 regarding life, liberty and security of the person.

The Legal Remedy of Mandamus

An applicant waiting 18 months in the backlog likely has sufficient standing to force IRCC to render a decision. They can do this by seeking a writ of mandamus, where the Federal Court compels a government decision-maker to perform a public legal duty. A successful application orders the department to make a decision within a legally binding timeframe, typically 30 to 90 days. It does not order IRCC to approve the citizenship.

To prove a processing delay is illegal under the established Apotex legal test for mandamus, a case is evaluated against several criteria. The duty must be mandatory, the delay unreasonable, and the applicant must have exhausted other remedies like Webforms or GCMS note requests. The government must provide a specific justification; "lack of staff" or citing a large backlog are routinely rejected by the Federal Court. The applicant must show the delay causes actual harm and that the hold-up is entirely IRCC's fault.

The Path to a Court Order

Individual applicants must first issue a formal notice demanding a decision once delays exceed standard norms. This demand letter gives IRCC a reasonable deadline-typically 30 to 60 days-to act. If the government ignores the demand, the applicant can file in Federal Court to have a judge compel performance. The source states that "bureaucratic incompetence is not a valid legal excuse for suspending a citizen’s rights."

Federal Court decisions increasingly indicate that bureaucratic failure and understaffing alone are not enough to justify prolonged delays. Publishing a multi-year processing timeline does not erase the legal right to a decision in a reasonable time frame, nor does it shield the government from being challenged in court. However, courts generally will not direct the federal government on staffing or budget decisions.

IRCC cannot impose caps or quotas on the Citizenship-by-descent initiative. As the source notes, quoting the Act, "The Minister shall... Issue a certificate of citizenship to them." Citizenship is a fundamental legal status, not an immigration program subject to intake management. By stalling applications, IRCC is functionally treating these citizens-identifiable by their foreign birth-as second-class compared to citizens born on Canadian soil.