Did Canada recently change its passport policy to prohibit people from listing Palestine as their country of birth on their passports? No, that's not true: Canadian Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Marc Miller responded to the claim on X. Miller said there have been no recent changes to the nations listed in Canada's passport application form for country of birth.
The claim appeared in a video (archived here) on TikTok on February 23, 2024. In the video, a woman claimed:
In Canada, you're not allowed to be from Palestine anymore. They're erasing the Palestinian identity.
Users on social media saw this title, description and thumbnail:
Blair from Canada on TikTok
Replying to @o #fyp #foryou #tiktok #foryoupage
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Fri Mar 1 16:45:01 2024 UTC)
The woman in the video continued:
This is my grandma's current Canadian passport. It says she was born in Al Bassa, Palestine. But it expires this month and she's trying to get it renewed. According to the government of Canada, on her new passport, Palestine has to be removed and replaced with no country of birth.
That's not true, according to Miller. On February 26, 2024, he debunked the claim on X, the site formerly known as Twitter. Miller wrote:
I'd like to correct recent claims circulating on social media related to the selection of Palestine as the country of birth on the Canadian passport. There have been no recent changes to the country list available in the Canadian passport application form.
He continued:
If an applicant was born before May 14, 1948 and requests Palestine as their country of birth, they can do so by going into the application drop down menu and clicking on the 'Other field' followed by entering 'Palestine'. This can also be done by hand, as always.
You can see his posts here (archived here and here) and below:
Additional Lead Stories fact checks of claims related to Palestine can be read here.
