shutterbug said:
Leon, I just went through this procedure and from my understanding is that the child must be adopted by the Canadian Parent. I adopted my son last fall and sailed through the citizenship for my son within 30 days. After the adoption I had to do part one which is to prove that I am a Canadian Citizen and then in Part two they required we send his PR Card and pay the fees. Correct me if I am wrong but the child still has to wait the full time unless adopted by a Canadian parent. They then sent him his Certificate and we applied for Passport. He has now become a Canadian
No, children don't have to meet the time requirements, see http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/citizenship/become-eligibility.asp#time
However, the child can not apply by itself and the parent must be a citizen or applying for citizenship in order to apply for the child.
In the first case, the parent is already a citizen, it's not too common because usually, when a Canadian has a baby, they get citizenship automatically. The exceptions are if the parent did not yet have citizenship when the baby was born or did not include the child on their application for some reason or if the parent is unable to pass on citizenship because they were born outside Canada to a Canadian parent themselves and gained citizenship based on heritage which would make their baby 2nd generation born abroad.
In the second case, the parent applying for citizenship must meet the 1095 day requirement which means usually their children do too but it's not a requirement for the children so a PR parent who meets the 1095 days can also apply for citizenship for his children who have not spent that long in Canada. In that case, the only requirement is that the children live in Canada when they apply and that they are PR.
