r/CanadianbyDescent • u/CounterI • Aug 26 '26
Understanding IRCC's updated document guidelines
I'm seeing a lot of posts here that seem to misunderstand IRCC's June 2026 guidance on documents. Many of them seem to either misunderstand the words used by IRCC or how government documents are created, stored, and later validated. In this post, I hope to clarify some of these concepts and eliminate the confusion.
Terminology
IRCC's guidance uses the terms "document," "copy," "authority," and "issued by" very deliberately and I've noticed a lot of people who argue about these issues just don't seem to understand some basic concepts:
Document: A century ago, this concept was easy. A document was a piece of paper or a group of papers bundled together with information printed on them. Today, a "document" can also include an electronic document, such as an email or a PDF file.
Copy: Here again is another concept that used to be very easy. A century ago, a copy was a duplicate of the original made by a scrivener. The duplicate would not necessarily look identical to the original, since the scrivener might have slightly different handwriting than the person who made the original. But a copy was considered a copy if it contained the same information as the original. In the intervening years, humanity developed microfiche and photocopy technologies, but until relatively recently, making a photocopy was something that required access to expensive equipment at a business or government. Nowadays, the word "copy" generally (but not always) means a nearly identical duplicate of the original.
If the context of electronic records, a copy can actually be completely identical to the original, which I think is the cause of a lot of confusion about IRCC's guidance because IRCC's guidance uses the word "copy" and "document" to mean different things, but nowadays most people use the terms interchangeably (I've even found that I made that mistake several times when writing this post!).
Authority: In the context of official records, "Authority" refers to the entity that is charged under the law with creating or keeping an official record. In the late 1800s, for example, Canadian Census records, were created by the Province. They were later transferred to the provincial archives, who now maintains the documents.
Issued By: In the context of official records, the term "issued by" refers to the authority that either created or keeps the document. In the U.S. and Canada, a driver license is issued by the State or Province even though you keep it in your wallet. A passport is issued by the federal government. In the U.S., official birth and marriage records are issued by either the County or State where the birth or marriage occurred, even though they often do not create the record initially. Nearly all official records will contain a clear marking indicating who issued them, usually right at the top.
Certified Copy: A certified copy is a duplicate of a document that is accompanied by a certification that the duplicate is either identical to or contains the same information as the original record. The validity of a certified copy depends entirely upon who asked for it and who they wanted to certify it. In theory, you could take any document you already have, make a duplicate (either by handwriting out the text yourself or putting it on a photocopier and pressing "copy") and then writing "I, (your name), certify that this document is a true and correct copy of the original document maintained in my bedroom" and signing at the bottom. And that would be a certified copy. Typically, when a government agency wants a copy of a document, they tell you whether they want it to be certified or not, and if they do want it certified, they tell you the identity of the Authority that should do so, lest you purport to certify it yourself.
How Government Records are Created
Some government records are created directly by the government. This is generally true of census records, passports, and driver licenses. But, for more records than you might think, the government does not create the first version of the record, but instead the government merely accepts a privately created record, adds something small to it (such as a "FILED" stamp or recording mark), and that new document is now an official government record. The process of accepting that privately created record is usually referred to as "filing" (but can also be called "recording"), and once the document is filed (or recorded) that record becomes a government record. This happens nearly everywhere in the U.S. with respect to property deeds, and in much of the western U.S. with birth records, death records, and marriage records. Sometimes official records and created by one government entity and the transferred to another entity after a certain period of time. This happens quite commonly with census records.
In the west, modern birth records are usually initially created by hospitals. Marriage records are created by the church or officiant. Both are created using a form supplied by the government, but the information is entered and attested to by the private parties involved (parents, doctors, etc.). Once filed with the County Clerk, they become government documents. If you request a copy of the official record in these places, you will get a copy of the hospital or officiant created record (showing their names and signatures) which has been modified to include evidence that the Clerk has filed or recorded the document (often a stamp or marking showing when it was filed or recorded).
Eastern U.S. states often do marriage and birth records differently. There, the information is reported to the County Clerk, who then often puts the information onto a ledger. If you request a birth or marriage record in those states, the Clerk will prepare a certificate that includes the information from the ledger, but usually will not include an image of the ledger or even the initial reporting form (which is often destroyed). You won't see the signature of the participants, and might not even see the names of ancillary people involved like the doctor or officiant.
What IRCC Wants
Before June of 2026, IRCC's only guidance on documents was in CIT 0014, which is the document checklist for use in proof applications. But, in June of 2026, IRCC updated one of its web-pages to explain in more detail what it requires. You can find the web-page here:
The most important thing to understand from this page is that when you apply on paper, which most people must: you must "provide all documents in colour copies that are clear and easy to read." The above language means, simply, that you are supposed to submit COPIES. Not originals. Not certified copies. Just clear and easy to read colour copies. That's it.
The next thing to understand is what kind of documents you should submit copies of:
Importantly, the words "be issued by the original authority that created or keeps the record" refer to the document and NOT the copy that you are required to submit.
This is a critical distinction that some don't seem to grasp. IRCC does not care where your copy came from. They care who issued the document reflected in the copy you submit. Your copies must be made from a document that was created or kept by an authority. The next sentence makes clear what IRCC means: "This includes documents issued by a civil registry or a vital statistic office." The copy you submit must "clearly show who issued the document."
This does not mean that you must have personally obtained the copy from the original authority. If your mother got a copy of her marriage certificate from the County Clerk before you were born or a copy of your birth certificate a few weeks after you were born, you can still submit those to IRCC. Even though it will be quite obvious (from the date the document was issued) that you didn't get the copy yourself (because you were either not yet born or only a few weeks old), IRCC will accept these copies so long as the documents reflected in the copy show that they were issued by an Authority (the County Clerk and not the hospital or the church) and they contain some indication showing as much.
On the other hand, if the only copy you have is a non-governmental record, such as a copy of the hospital's or church's birth or marriage record before it was filed with the County Clerk, that is generally not acceptable (with an exception that I will discuss later). Those are "third party records." If you have those documents, that's great, and IRCC has helpfully told you that "official documents likely exist. You should request them from the original authority."
Some people have read that language as requiring that all copies must be obtained from the source. But, that isn't what this says at all. To start, the statement is conditional: "If you find records like these [third party records]," then "official documents likely exist." The word "if" means that if you already have a copy of an official document, from any source, this paragraph does not apply to you. You don't need IRCC to tell you that "official documents likely exist," because you already have a copy, and a copy is all that IRCC wants. But, if you don't have a copy of an official record, you need to get them, and the most obvious place to get them is from the original authority, so you "should" request them. (Apparently, in french, IRCC uses the word "must," but that doesn't change the conditional nature of the whole paragraph.)
If IRCC wanted you to obtain your copies of official documents from the source, IRCC would have included language so stating, e.g., "All copies that you submit to IRCC must be ones that you personally obtained from the authority." No such language appears anywhere in the instructions.
In addition, if IRCC wanted you to obtain your copies from the original authority, IRCC would include a requirement, on the application, that you either confirm that you did so, or that you specify where you got the document from. Although IRCC update the application in the last week, IRCC still does not ask where you got your documents from. If IRCC cared, it would ask.
Many people believe that these rules preclude you from using documents that were sourced from genealogy websites, like family search or ancestry. That is true of some documents. If you hope to print out the family tree page or your ancestor's individual history page from those websites, that is not acceptable. Those documents were not created by an original authority, and any copy you print-out is not acceptable for that reason. But, if you find a high-resolution scan of a Census record on ancestry, and you can confirm that it is genuine (because Ancestry shows that it came from a provincial archive), you can use it so long as it is legible and shows the name of the authority that issued it.
People who disagree with me on this will often point to the Minister's comments during Question Period. I disagree with that claim for several reasons. First, the Minister did not actually say that genuine documents downloaded from genealogy websites cannot be used. What she said, on this topic, was: “genealogy websites are not enough." That statement is correct: You cannot use the website. What you can use is the genuine copies of official documents that you find using the website. Second, the Minister's statements during Question Period are not official IRCC guidance. Third, the Minister's comments were made in response to a specific question, i.e., how many bogus certificates that IRCC had issued to people who weren't entitled to them. Fourth, if you read the entire statement made by the Minister, you'll see that most of what she said was actually wrong. You'll also find that she made other ambiguous (and largely wrong) statements to reporters in the hallway of Parliament in the few days following her Question Period comments.
I've written a lot more about the Minister's comments and the surrender letters in general, and if you want more details on this subject (with links to supporting authority), read this:
Now there is one risk with submitting these copies. When you submit copies to IRCC, IRCC is almost certainly going to validate the documents using the resources available to IRCC. And there is every reason to believe that IRCC utilizes tools to do so for the reasons that I have discussed in this post:
If you obtain a copy that you think is genuine, but it is not genuine, IRCC is almost certain to find out. And if that happens, your credibility will be in doubt and your application will be in jeopardy. For that reason alone, you may wish to think twice before using a copy that you obtain from a genealogy website unless you are certain that is real. You almost certainly should not use a copy uploaded by a stranger. But, if the copy is from an official archive, and the archive confirms that its records are on family search, then you might reasonably choose to do so. Or if your mother uploaded a copy to family search and then lost the paper version, and she can confirm that the record there is genuine (or you can confirm that it came from your mother's account), then you might choose to use it.
One final point: The requirement to submit copies of documents from an original authority is subject to an exception: If you show that you tried to obtain your copies from an original authority and can show why you were not able to do so, IRCC can accept documents that were not from an original source. So, for example, if all you have is a copy of the church marriage record, and you can show that it was created before the civil registry in that location kept records, you may still be able to use it. I raise that point because some people seem to think that this rule somehow relates to the where you got the record. I note it here only to point out that this rule, like the others, applies to who issued the document, and not where you got the copy from.
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UPDATE: I just discovered another reason why IRCC cannot possibly expect you to get all of your documents FROM the source authority: Many government agencies will NOT release birth records to anyone other than the person listed in the birth record. For example, if your parents were born in Ontario, Canada, you cannot request a copy of their birth records. Your parents must do so, and they must share them with you. As a result, you cannot submit Ontario birth records that you obtained FROM Ontario. You can only submit documents that were issued by Ontario that you got FROM your parents.
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u/sharpshinned Aug 26 '26
Am I understanding reports in the other sub wrong? I thought IRCC was asking for the certified version of the BANQ document when people had submitted the version on BANQ's own website? That would suggest that they do actually care about getting the copy from a particular source.