Could Canada’s new citizenship law help U.S. draft dodgers?

With the U.S. set to resume mandatory draft registration this year, Canada's new citizenship law offers would-be dodgers the unconditional right to enter Canada.

In the wake of changes to Canada’s Citizenship Act in December of 2025, which removed the generational limit to inheriting Canadian citizenship, millions of Americans with Canadian ancestry are now legally recognized as U.S.-Canadian dual citizens under Canadian law.

Among those now recognized as U.S.-Canadian dual citizens are, of course, many 18- to 26-year-old American men, who will be automatically registered for the U.S. draft starting this December.

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Today, any of these young men can apply for proof of Canadian citizenship certificates and obtain Canadian passports, provided they have the necessary documents proving their Canadian ancestry.

With Canadian passports and citizenship certificates in hand, they’d have guaranteed entry, for life, to the land of hockey sticks and maple syrup, where they’d be allowed to stay for as long as they want.

But would any of them even need a Canadian passport to dodge the draft?

During the period of the Vietnam War, 50,000 draft-age American men crossed the border into Canada. They didn’t even need U.S. passports. They were allowed into Canada as U.S. citizens at their word or at inspection of their birth certificates—with Canadian border officials under instructions from Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau's government not to ask about their U.S. military status.

This spring, those at the forefront of the thousands of Americans applying for proof of Canadian citizenship certificates are not young men, but rather older, well-to-do professionals.

Retired doctors, lawyers, entrepreneurs, and tech workers, for the most part they’re getting Canadian passports as a back-up plan, because they value options.

U.S-Canadian dual citizens enjoy the full rights and privileges afforded to citizens of both countries, while being fully subject to the laws of both countries, including any draft provisions issued under U.S. law.

All Americans who are now Canadian have a right to citizenship and the benefits that it confers. Their choice of whether to apply for proof of Canadian citizenship certificates, and their reasons for doing so, are theirs.

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Applying for proof of Canadian citizenship

Any American with Canadian ancestry born before December 15, 2025, is already a Canadian citizen—even if their family has lived in the U.S. for four, five, or six generations.

With even a single Canadian ancestor, somewhere up in their family tree, they qualify.

All they need to apply for a Canadian citizenship certificate is to submit a paper application, including copies of the official documents proving their ancestry, to Canada’s citizenship department.

Once their application is processed, which currently takes around ten months, they’ll receive a proof of Canadian citizenship certificate, which they can use to apply for a Canadian passport.

In many cases, the most difficult part is simply obtaining copies of the required documents from regional authorities in Canada, such as the province of Quebec's Directeur de l’état civil (DEC). These archives are often the biggest roadblock, and to overcome them, many Americans are hiring professional representatives based in Canada, since Canadian archives often prioritize requests from Canadian residents.

At this point, we don’t know whether young Americans with Canadian ancestry are lining up to request these vital records, with the ultimate intention of seeking Canadian passports to dodge a potential draft.

We don’t know whether they’d even need to.

What we do know is that older, wealthier Americans are applying for Canadian citizenship certificates in droves, and that the processing time has doubled, from 5 to 10 months.

Today, there are more than 50,000 applications in the queue, and with millions of Americans eligible, the line is growing.

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