Hospital data shows a rise in birth tourism
New hospital data confirms a spike in “birth tourism,” fueling a renewed push by Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre to end automatic birthright citizenship.
New hospital data confirms a spike in “birth tourism,” fueling a renewed push by Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre to end automatic birthright citizenship.
A report released this week by Andrew Griffith, a former director-general at the federal immigration department, suggests a modest increase in births to non-residents during the 2024-25 fiscal year, based on data from the Canadian Institute for Health Information.
Griffith’s analysis, published in Policy Options, reported a four per cent increase in births to temporary residents compared with the previous fiscal year, even as the federal government reduced the number of people holding temporary status in Canada.
“There were 5,430 births in the 2024-25 fiscal year to non-residents in hospitals across Canada,” the report found. The total includes births to women on visitor visas, international students and temporary foreign workers.
The figure is close to pre-pandemic levels. In 2019-20, Canadian hospitals recorded 5,698 births to non-residents. The number fell by roughly 50 per cent during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Ontario recorded 2,895 non-resident births in the past fiscal year, followed by Quebec with 1,417, British Columbia with 542 and Alberta with 345. Another 225 occurred across the remaining provinces and territories.
Griffith said the increase is notable given the decline in the temporary resident population. International student visas dropped by 31 per cent and the number of temporary foreign workers fell by 21 per cent during the same period.
“That’s my supposition,” Griffith said, suggesting the rise may be linked to more women arriving on visitor visas. He added that he believes “the number of women on visitor visas giving birth may be slightly understated.”
Birth tourism has also drawn attention following reports earlier this year of private companies advertising services to help foreign women give birth in Canada, promoting access to automatic citizenship for their children.
Medical professionals say the practice has the greatest impact in cities with major international airports. Calgary obstetrician-gynaecologist Dr. Colin Birch has said birth tourism slowed when international travel was restricted during the pandemic and was expected to gradually return to pre-pandemic levels. He has warned that foreign birth tourists can displace local patients and strain hospital capacity.
In Calgary, hospitals require birth tourists to pay a $15,000 deposit toward physician fees. A BMC Health Services research report has found that about one-third of birth tourist mothers still leave unpaid medical bills.
The issue resurfaced politically in October, when Poilievre said a future Conservative government would move to end birth tourism.
Speaking at a press conference in Ottawa, Poilievre criticized Liberal Justice Minister Sean Fraser, who previously served as immigration minister, calling him a “human wrecking ball.”
“He single-handedly destroyed the consensus we had on immigration. He destroyed our housing market, our health care, and our job market,” Poilievre said. “So for him to lecture anybody on any matters of immigration is the height of Liberal hypocrisy.”
Fraser served as immigration minister from October 2021 to July 2023, a period during which the federal government admitted more than two million migrants, according to government data cited by Poilievre.
Poilievre argued that Canada’s automatic birthright citizenship rules should be revised to prevent visitors and temporary residents with no permanent ties to Canada from using childbirth as a pathway to citizenship.
“What \[Conservative MP Michelle\] Rempel is saying,” Poilievre said, “is that for everyone who is an immigrant to Canada as a permanent resident or a citizen, of course, they can pass on citizenship to their kids. But if you’re coming here as a visitor and neither parent has an attachment to Canada as a permanent resident or citizen, they can’t pass citizenship down the line.”
He linked the issue to broader pressures on housing and health care.
“Because of Mark Carney’s former immigration minister, Sean Fraser, we have roughly what is it, three million temporary residents here in Canada,” Poilievre said. “And the risk is that some might think that the only way to stay is by having a kid here.”
The Liberal government has defended maintaining Canada’s birthright citizenship policy.
“I believe that we should maintain birthright citizenship in Canada, and I don’t know if I can be any more direct than that,” Fraser said.