These famous Americans could be eligible for Canadian citizenship under Ottawa's new legislation

A piece of legislation making its way through Ottawa this fall and set to come into effect in January, if not earlier, will restore and grant Canadian citizenship to thousands of people around the world who were previously shut out by an earlier rule.

It also means a handful of celebrities — including Hillary Clinton, Madonna and Viggo Mortensen, among others — will also, by virtue of their Canadian ancestry, become Canadians.

“This has a huge impact on people all over the world who are descendants of Canadians,” Toronto immigration lawyer Valerie Kleinman from Green and Spiegel told National Post in an interview.

“I can imagine a situation where there are many people globally who will be Canadian and will actually have no idea that they are Canadian, which is really interesting.”

Here’s what you need to know about Bill C-3: An Act to Amend the Citizenship Act and the elimination of the first-generation limit on citizenship.

What famous people could become Canadian under Bill C-3?

According to Perche-Quebec, a website that explores the historical migration of people from France’s Perche region to New France, the territory colonized by France in North America, former First Lady and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has several French-Canadian ancestors in her maternal family tree.

Their descendants stayed in Quebec for generations and later emigrated to the U.S., though some, including her great-great-grandmother Mary Anne Frances McDougall, lived in Windsor at times.

“She really has a good French-Canadian line,” Gail Moreau-Desharnais of the French-Canadian Heritage Society of Michigan told The Canadian Press in 2016.

“And when you trace her matrilineal line, or female to female to female, her ultimate female ancestor is Jeanne Ducorps, one of the Filles du Roi (King’s Daughters).”

That was the name given to roughly 800 women sent to New France by King Louis XIV between 1663 and 1673 to correct the gender imbalance in the colony, where they were encouraged to marry and make babies.

As documented by Perche-Quebec and other genealogists, Clinton’s ancestry also makes her a distant relative of Justin Bieber, Madonna, Celine Dion, Jack Kerouac, Ryan Gosling, Alanis Morissette, not to mention two former prime ministers — Pierre Elliott and Justin Trudeau.

Award-winning actor Angelina Jolie’s great-grandmother, Marie-Louise Angélina LeDuc, who shares a similar Percheron pioneer ancestry as Clinton and the others, hails from Sainte-Anne-de-la-Pérade, Que., a town on the north shore of the St. Lawrence River, according to Geneanet.

As reported by the BBC last year, Jolie is also a distant relative of the late Queen Elizabeth II by way of her matrilineal line, which stretches back to French King Phillip II, who ruled in the late 12th and early 13th century.

As for Madonna, the singer has French-Canadian ancestry, starting with her great-great-grandparents and dating back six generations, according to a Canadian genealogist.

She was born Madonna Louise Ciccone to Silvio Ciccone and Madonna Louise Fortin, whose maternal great-grandfather was Narcisse ‘Nelson” Fortin of St-Simon, Que, as researched by Kim Kujawski, who runs a service called The French Genealogist.

His son of the same name would later settle in Bay City, Michigan, where the singer was born four generations later in 1958.

Actress Lily Collins already has U.K. and U.S. citizenship by way of her parents — famed pop rocker Phil Collins of England and his second ex-wife Jill Tavelman.

She could add a Canadian passport by way of her maternal great-grandfather,

Jack Charles Tavelman, who was born in Winnipeg in 1900 to Russian Jewish parents, according to Ancestry.com.

He later emigrated to California, where he ran a men’s clothing store in Beverly Hills.

Detroit-born rocker Jack White has one of the shorter climbs along his family tree to find a Canadian connection.

As reported by CBC in 2007, his paternal grandfather, Frank Gillis, was from Sydney Mines, a small town in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. His wife, Florence MacIsaac, while born in Boston, grew up in Antigonish, N.S., to parents from Inverness, also on Cape Breton Island.

He’s also distantly related to renowned Nova Scotia fiddlers Ashley MacIsaac, Buddy MacMaster and Natalie MacMaster.

Lord of the Rings trilogy actor Viggo Mortensen, who already has citizenship in the U.S., where he was born, and in Denmark, where his namesake father hails from, also has roots in Nova Scotia on his mother’s side.

As documented by Geneanet, his maternal grandfather, Walter Sydney Atkinson, was born in Parrsboro, a small town in the province’s northwest. Her Canadian ancestry in Atlantic Canada dates back several generations.

“I’ve always had an affinity (for Canada),” he told Sheridan College in 2021. “I’ve been there a lot. I like the landscapes, not just in the east but the west — I know the country fairly well.”

Why was Bill C-3 introduced?

In 2009, the Stephen Harper government eliminated the first-generation limit on citizenship by descent. That meant Canadian citizens born abroad to parents from Canada could no longer pass on their citizenship to children born outside of Canada.

For instance, if your grandfather was a Canadian, but his daughter — your mother — was born in the U.S., her offspring wouldn’t automatically be granted citizenship.

It created a new class of individuals known as “Lost Canadians,” a term that originally referred to people who lost or never acquired their citizenship “due to outdated provisions (sex, marital status, place of birth, naturalization status), which affected whether that person could derive, acquire, or lose Canadian citizenship.”

The second-generation cutoff was challenged in court and ultimately led to the Ontario Superior Court of Justice ruling it unconstitutional in 2023 and requiring Ottawa to amend the Citizenship Act to correct it within six months.

Legislation tabled to eliminate the first-generation limit died with the prorogation of Parliament in March at the request of then-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to allow the Liberal Party to hold a leadership contest to name his successor. The legislation was reintroduced as Bill C-3: An Act to Amend the Citizenship Act in May and received Royal Assent in the House of Commons on Nov. 20.

The new provisions have yet to be passed into law, however, as Ottawa had already filed for and was granted its fifth extension since the original ruling. The new deadline is Jan. 20, 2026.

In her latest ruling, Justice Jasmine Akbarali said the federal government “has been making significant progress” and the legislation could come into force before the deadline.

“There is a reasonable expectation that the replacement legislation may come into force by the end of 2025,” she wrote.

Asked if government will meet the deadline, Immigration, Refugee and Citizenship Canada would not say.

“The bill will come into force on a date set by order in council, which will be communicated publicly,” they wrote in an email to National Post.

Who can become Canadian citizens under Bill C-3?

For people born before the legislation comes into effect — the “Lost Canadians” — their right to Canadian citizenship is retroactively restored, provided they can provide an unbroken line of descent from an ancestor, a grandparent or a great-grandparent born or naturalized in Canada.

There is no limit on how far back into the family tree, meaning that even great-great-grandparents and beyond with Canadian lineage can afford citizenship.

Certificates of citizenship are not automatically granted, however, and must be applied for individually with documentation.

Kleinman said finding the evidence could prove difficult for people going far back into their lineage to find the Canadian connection among great-great-grandparents and earlier ancestors.

“We’ll have to see what type of evidence will be accepted, but there has to be very clear proof that there is that direct lineage from generation to generation to generation,” she said.

For people born after C-3 becomes law, a Canadian born abroad hoping to pass on their citizenship to their child born abroad will need to prove “a substantial connection” to the country, which is defined as living in Canada 1,095 days — the equivalent of three calendar years — before their child was born.

“This approach supports fairness for families while reinforcing the principle that real, demonstrated ties to Canada guide citizenship by descent,” IRCC stated in a press release.

Kleinman expects more clarity on this provision and what evidence will be required once the law is enacted, but she foresees scenarios that could make it hard to prove those three years of physical residency.

“Maybe we have a 40-year-old who lived in Canada between the ages of one and four years old and now is having a baby abroad after the legislation comes into force — how will they prove that they spent 1,095 days in Canada when they were effectively a toddler?”

Or in the case of a person or persons with Canadian ancestry who already have a toddler while living abroad, but then have a second child after the law is enshrined. The first child would retroactively be afforded citizenship, while the other would have to prove his parents spent 1,095 days in Canada before his birth.

“I think we’re going to see a variety of interesting scenarios that will affect many people,” she said.

IRCC implemented interim measures in 2023, allowing people from both groups to apply before the prior to the legislation’s enactment.

It’s not clear how many people globally could potentially seek to apply for proof of citizenship, but Ottawa is not expecting a flood of applications.

“Based upon available evidence, we expect applications in the tens of thousands over time, not hundreds of thousands,” Diab said during her opening statement at a Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology last month. “Between January 2024 and July 2025, we received just over 4,200 applications under the interim measure for those affected by the first-generation limit.”

IRCC’s spokesperson told National Post the department is not expecting a “surge in applications,” nor does it “anticipate any significant increase in processing time for proof of citizenship applications” once C-3 i enacted. The current processing time is about nine months, but IRCC warns that applications outside Canada and the U.S. may take longer.

Kleinman, who expects a lot of interest and a high volume of applications, said she’s personally spoken to many people about the impending changes, some of whom shed “tears of joy when they understood what this would mean for them.” 

A lot of those people, she admitted, are Americans.

By virtue of our shared border and shared immigration history, “There are many people in the United States who have Canadian ancestry and there is a lot of interest right now in particular.”

Another interesting scenario raised by Kleinman involves people who may have to formally renounce their Canadian citizenship if they are already citizens of a country that doesn’t allow dual citizenship, such as China, India, Japan, Saudi Arabia and several dozen more.

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