The last I heard, Canada is cracking down on multigenerations of Canadians being born outside Canada, so the first generation born on foreign soil can be Canadian, but their children cannot be unless born on Canadian soil. This has already caused problems for some expats, but I think it make good sense.
Without expressing any view on whether your description of the recent changes is correct, I will note that recent changes to the law are not necessarily retroactive and do not necessarily strip people of their citizenship, so the inquiry is not that simple (see below).
From what I gather, one or more of your birth parents have to be naturalized *before* you were born.
This is not correct. Naturalisation is only one way to become a Canadian citizen. There are other ways to be a Canadian citizen that do not require any application, so it is possible to be a Canadian citizen without ever having applied for it, and without even knowing you are one. I'm not saying that that applies to anyone in Tom's family, but as a general matter, it is possible.
As for the original poster:
As you correctly surmised, this is a very complicated topic. Canadian citizenship today is governed by the Citizenship Act,
RSC 1985, c C-29, but that Act has been amended and replaced over the years, and the relevant version is
usually the one that was in effect when each person being analysed was born, as opposed to the current version which you can view at the link. I say "
usually" because some amendments are retroactive (but many are not retroactive). To keep things interesting, there have also been various laws over the years that gave one-time grants or restorations of citizenship, and those laws may also have to be analysed.
With that said, here is the general analytical framework to determine whether you are a Canadian citizen:
- First, determine whether your grandmother was a British subject at her birth and was still a British subject when she gave birth to your father.
- Second, if your grandmother was a British subject when she gave birth to your father, then analyse whether your father became a British subject at birth.
- Third, if your father was a British subject at his birth, then analyse whether he became a Canadian citizen on January 1, 1947, when Canadian citizenship was first introduced, or whether he retroactively became one by later legislation.
- Fourth, if your father was a Canadian citizen when your mother gave birth to you (whether by maintaining citizenship continuously or by losing it and having it automatically restored under later legislation), then analyse whether you became a Canadian citizen at birth and did not subsequently lose your Canadian citizenship.
All of these steps may be very complicated. There may also be ways of being a Canadian citizen not captured by that framework.
Unfortunately, working out the answers for your specific circumstances would require a lot more facts and a whole lot of time, so it's not something we can do for you on the forum.
