Afternoon all

Im hoping some of you experienced people can give me and my wife some valuable advice. Ok here's the story & query

My wife's mum was born in Canada in the fifties but moved over to the uk soon after, she then moved back to Canada in the 70's and worked for a few years. She then moved back over to the UK and shortly after she gave birth to my wife (Mid Eighties). At the time she actually applied and got my wife a canadian passport and canadian citizenship although my wife was only around the age of 5 at the time, I think she did this incase they ever moved back over to Canada.

They ended up staying in the UK, anyway here's my question;

My wife (now 27) has this canadian passport (expired now as it was when she was around 5 years old) and a canadian citizenship certificate card. She has never entered Canada but would she still be classed as a citizen, would she just have to apply for a new passport?

Also if she was to apply for a Canadian passport renewal would she then be entitled to sponsor the family (me and our 2 sons aged 3 and 1), we have been married 3 years but are not sure of any limitations to sponsor a whole family who are all British.

Any advice or info would be much appreciated

As far as Im concerned she is a Canadian citizen and eligible to sponsor family members.
http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/immigra...-apply-who.asp

She can use the Citizenship card as proof of citizenship and apply for a new passport or use her UK passport along with the citizenship card.

http://www.ppt.gc.ca/index.aspx

Thanks for the advice, do you think the citizenship card would need renewed as it still has a picture of her on when she was about 5, we couldnt actually see that it has an expiry date on though, unlike the passports. Also as a former Lancastrian you wont have been far from us in Cumbria

Citizenship cards dont have an expiry date per se. My kid got his when he was 18 months and he is now 28 so he looks nothing like his citizenship card

Thats great, we did wonder whether we would have to pay to get an updated citizenship card/certificate but hopefully from what your saying we dont. Just the passport renewal to do then before we can look into sponsorship

I look nothing like my citizenship card photo. That laminated card has suffered thirty years of hard wear and tear.

Mines suffered 25 yrs of wear and tear so I broke down and got a Canadian passport.

Your wife's CC may need to be renewed. Ty the Canadian embassy in London for info on that. She is still a Canadian, so sponsorship for you and the children should go through. Only things that would cause delay would be any criminal record or serious illness.

Citizenship cards without an expiry date (unusual to have an expiry date) do NOT need to be renewed. She should get a new Canadian passport, but citizenship card is still valid.

Note that the children (3 years and 1 year), can immediately be granted Canadian citizenship as soon as they are admitted to Canada as permanent residents. The normal residence period does not apply to them.

Thank you for telling us that...I didn't know, I'm sure lots of others don't either.

I got our son's CC when he was just old enough to sit up be himself, propped up on the photographers wall, without my hand visable in the photo (a few months old I think)....he's changed quite a lot since!

But I'm pretty sure she doesn't need to renew her passport to start the sponsorship process....it's just something she can do at any stage. As the sponsorship process takes a good while to complete, I'd say get started on it right away!

Paradise, as you are new here, please note that Former Lancastrian is a immigration official in Canada, so people on here do tend to take his comments as the real deal, if he says the CC will not need to be renewed, then it doesn't.

All she needs is a passport, citizenship cards were scrapped a couple of years ago, it's just a letter with a barcode on it now. You can get one if you want but there's no point, she has sufficient documentation already. In fact she doesn't even need that, a copy of her birth certificate and her mother's birth certificate would have been enough.

She can sponsor you in, your children sound as though they post-date the 2009 changes so will also need to be included in that application. This will actually work to their advantage because once they are naturalized their children will also be Canadian wherever born.

http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/citizenship/rules_2009.asp

Existing citizenship cards are still valid. Those who do not have one, or who have lost theirs, absolutely do need a citizenship certificate.
http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/departm...ce-new-cit.asp

I wonder do I need one? I never had one before, and will probably soon apply for a new Canadian passport (my last one expired in the nineties!) on the strength of my Canadian birth cert.

My kids all have their citizenship cards, and my wife is now a landed PR.