'Lost Canadians' citizenship bill passes

OTTAWA, April 18 (UPI) -- An overhaul of Canada's citizenship law was given official assent in Ottawa, opening the door for "Lost Canadians" to regain their status.

The Conservative government's Bill C-37 sorted out various quirks in 19th century legislation that affected as many as 200,000 people who lost, or never had, their citizenship, the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. reported.

Among those considered "lost" were people born in the United States to Canadian parents. Unless they registered in Canada, they didn't have citizenship automatically, while others lost their citizenship if their Canadian fathers later took U.S. citizenship.

A statement by Citizenship and Immigration Canada said exceptions to the law allowing lost Canadians to register are "those who renounced their citizenship with Canadian authorities, and those whose citizenship was revoked by the government because it was obtained by fraud."