The federal government will not appeal the court ruling that declared part of the Canadian Citizenship Act unconstitutional.

Last month, a judge of the Ontario Superior Court found that the federal government violated rights guaranteed under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms through its so-called second-generation loss rule, a rule that automatically strips children born abroad of Canadian citizenship if they were Canadian.

Lawyer Sujit Choudhry confirmed on January 21 that representatives of the federal government informed him last week that they will not appeal the Ontario Superior Court judge's ruling.

The Canadian government had 30 days to appeal the ruling, a deadline that expired on January 18.

Choudhry filed a constitutional challenge in December 2021, bringing a lawsuit against the federal government for stripping his clients of the right to transfer their Canadian citizenship to their grandchildren born abroad.

Critics have long noted that such a law creates two classes of citizens, setting different rules for Canadians depending on whether they were born in Canada or abroad.

In her December ruling, Ontario Superior Court Justice Yasmin Abdurrahman agreed with this criticism, writing that Canadians born abroad hold an inferior class of citizenship because, unlike citizens born in Canada, they cannot pass their Canadian citizenship to their children born abroad.

The outcome of this legal battle is viewed as a victory for an estimated 200,000 lost Canadians, people who are not recognized as Canadian citizens due to loopholes or controversial interpretations of the citizenship law.

The second-generation loss rule was established in 2009 as part of an offensive launched by then-Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government against Canadian citizens permanently residing outside the country.

This measure was taken in response to the $85 million cost of evacuating about 15,000 stranded Lebanese Canadians in Beirut during the 2006 conflict between Israel and Hezbollah.

In her ruling, Justice Abdurrahman acknowledged public concern about the evacuation of Beirut, but wrote that the best evidence suggests some people were concerned about that... There is no evidence showing the existence of disconnected citizens. Nor whether these citizens exist, or whether their existence or citizenship creates any kind of problem.