Birth tourism booms as Liberals protect citizenship loophole
More than 5,400 non-resident births were recorded in one year, while Liberals and the Bloc defeated a Conservative attempt to close the citizenship loophole.
Non-resident births are surging as Liberals refuse to close Canada’s birth-tourism loophole.
Canadian hospitals recorded 5,430 “non-resident self-pay” births in 2024–25—more than double the pandemic-era average of 2,339 and up four per cent from the previous year.
The total included 2,895 births in Ontario, 1,417 in Quebec, 542 in British Columbia and 345 in Alberta. Another 225 were recorded elsewhere.
The figures do not exclusively represent birth tourists. The category also includes international students, temporary foreign workers and other non-residents who paid for their hospital care.
However, a previous Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada study estimated that short-term visitors accounted for nearly 70 per cent of non-resident hospital births outside Quebec between 2007–08 and 2017–18.
