Under the old rules, it was possible for Canadians to pass on their citizenship to endless generations born outside Canada. To protect the value of Canadian citizenship for the future, the new law limits – with a few exceptions – citizenship by descent to one generation born outside Canada.
This means that children born to Canadian parents in the first generation outside Canada will only be Canadian at birth if:
one parent was born in Canada, or
one parent became a Canadian citizen by immigrating to Canada and was later granted citizenship (also called naturalization).