The new citizenship law will correct some previous technical and discriminatory rules of the previous Citizenship Acts of 1947 and 1977. For example, the new law retroactively will make any individual born abroad to a Canadian born parent to be a Canadian Citizen. The former legislation this was not a given fact even if one parent was a Canadian Citizen. The legislation was complicated which disqualified certain children if they were born out of wedlock, their parents took on citizenship in another country and if the parents did not register the birth abroad in time or if the child did not apply for Citizenship to Canada within a certain period of time. The new law will now retroactively remove these impediments and will restore citizenship automatically to a number of people from abroad that lost their right of citizenship as a result of these rules.

The controversial aspect of the legislation is that moving forward it is restricting the right of citizenship by descent. On one hand making granting an automatic right for first generation children born abroad while on the other hand eliminating for 2nd generations born abroad. Now second generation Canadians cannot pass on citizenship to their children unless their children are born in Canada. An example would be an adopted child from abroad who lives in Canada all his life and has a child while working abroad for a Canadian company his or her child would not be a Canadian citizen. In effect the law is creating different citizenship rights to citizens depending upon their origin of birth. This law was designed to fix problems of the past and has done so but has also creating new issues and problems that will likely need correction by future legislation. Not a perfect situation.