Canadian Citizenship Test

Under current law there is no provision for involuntary loss of Canadian citizenship except:
naturalized Canadians can be deprived of citizenship if convicted of fraud in relation to their citizenship application, or their original admission to Canada as an immigrant
second-generation Canadians by descent may lose Canadian citizenship automatically on their 28th birthday if they do not meet the requirements for retention
Many Canadians lost Canadian citizenship prior to 15 February 1977 through:
naturalization in another country
long residence overseas (prior to 1967)
if a child, based on a parent’s loss of Canadian citizenship
See History of Canadian citizenship
A Canadian citizen who holds another nationality may in some cases renounce Canadian citizenship voluntarily.

There is no provision in the Citizenship Act for automatic conferral of Canadian citizenship upon those adopted by Canadian citizens, whether in Canada or overseas. It is necessary for the child to be granted Canadian citizenship by naturalization. Although the child usually needs to be a permanent resident, the three year residence term is not required where an adoptive parent is a Canadian citizen.
Effective 16 July 2001, adults who were adopted as children may be able to apply for a special grant of Canadian citizenship under section 5(4) of the Citizenship Act without requiring permanent resident status or residence in Canada. Details - Policy CP 01-05
This is in response to the McKenna case, a 1993 Canadian Human Rights Tribunal ruling [1]in which the Canadian government sought a judicial review before the Federal Court in 1995 [2]and which was subsequently taken before the Federal Court of Appeal in 1999.
In May 2006 the Canadian government introduced draft legislation, Bill C-14: An Act to Amend the Citizenship Act (Adoption) to place this policy into law.

A person who is a permanent resident may apply for Canadian citizenship by naturalization (grant) after three years resident in Canada.
The requirements in full are that the person:
is aged 18 years or over
is a permanent resident
has lived in Canada for a total of three years out of the four years preceding the application for citizenship
knows about Canada (a test is required as part of the application process, but only if the applicant is between 18 and 54 years of age)
knows the rights and responsibilities of Canadian citizenship.

Children aged under 18

The naturalization requirements for children under 18 are different to those for adults.
the child should be a permanent resident
a parent of the child should be a Canadian citizen or in the process of applying for Canadian citizenship
The residence and other requirements do not normally apply to those aged under 18.

All applicants for Canadian citizenship aged 14 or over must attend a citizenship ceremony as the final stage of their application.

Any person born outside Canada from 15 February 1977, who has a Canadian parent at the time of birth, is automatically a Canadian citizen by descent.
If the Canadian parent is also Canadian by descent and the other parent is not born or naturalized in Canada, then Canadian citizenship will be lost on that person’s 28th birthday unless the person successfully applies to retain Canadian citizenship.
Those born outside Canada between 1 January 1947 and 15 February 1977 are generally not Canadian citizens unless their birth was registered with the Canadian government before they were two years of age (and neither they nor their responsible parent subsequently lost Canadian citizenship by becoming citizens of another country before 1977) OR they applied for Canadian citizenship by descent before 14 August 2004. Applications for citizenship by descent fell into two categories: 1) delayed registration of birth abroad, which, when granted, made the person a citizen from birth (as if the birth had been registered with the Canadian government within two years as required by the 1947 Citizenship Act), and 2) a facilitated grant, in cases where the Canadian parent was the mother, not the father. The latter was not retroactive, so does not make children of the grantee born before the grant, Canadian citizens.
One class of Canadian citizens by descent who can still claim citizenship are those whose births were registered as required by the 1947 Act, but who then lost their Canadian citizenship when their responsible parent (normally the father) became a naturalized citizen of another country. In 2005, the Canadian Parliament passed a law allowing such persons who lost citizenship as minors to apply to resume Canadian citizenship without a residency or background-check requirement.

In general, anyone born in Canada from 1947 onwards acquired Canadian citizenship at birth. The only exceptions concern children born to diplomats, where additional requirements apply.
Most persons born in Canada before 1947 acquired Canadian citizenship on 1 January 1947 if still living at that date.

The Canadian Citizenship Act of 1946 took effect on 1 January 1947. Prior to that date, Canadians were British subjects and Canada’s nationality law closely mirrored that of the United Kingdom. As Canadian independence was obtained incrementally over the course of many years since the formation of the Canadian Confederation in 1867, the Second World War in particular gave rise to a desire amongst Canadians to have their country recognized as a fully-fledged sovereign state with a distinct citizenship. Prior to the conferring of legal status on Canadian citizenship, Canada’s naturalization laws consisted of a hodgepodge of confusing Acts which may have provided additional impetus for the creation of Canadian citizenship.
On 1 January 1947, Canadian citizenship was conferred on most British subjects connected with Canada. Subsequently, on 1 April 1949, Canadian nationality law was extended to Newfoundland upon that country’s admission to Confederation.
Canadian nationality law was substantially revised on 15 February 1977. Notably, from that date Canada fully accepts multiple citizenship. However those who lost Canadian citizenship before that date did not automatically have it restored.

Canadian citizenship is obtained by birth in Canada (other than as a child of a foreign diplomat), by birth abroad, when at least one parent is a Canadian citizen, or can be granted to a permanent resident who lives in Canada for three out of four years before applying for citizenship and is able to speak English or French. Time spent as a temporary resident before permanent residence is granted counts as half. Under special circumstances, the law allows for some requirements to be waived.