Child entering Canada with both parents
Planning a trip to Canada next month, I am checking the required documents for us to enter the country. We are from Europe, have valid passports and have an eTA each. There is only one unknown : what documents does my child require in order to be able to enter and leave the country.
My child is 18 months old and does not talk enough to have any kind of conversation. I and my partner are his legal and biological parents, and we are married.
The relevant page of the Canadian Immigration lists a few options (child traveling alone, with another tutor, with only one parent, is adopted...) but not the basic case "Child with both parents". Govenment of Canada page on Minors
My main concern is : how will the immigration officer know we are his parents? Neither our or his passport shows it. We moved recently so all the passports are not issued from the same administration (though the same country). Women do not change surname in our home country, so the mother does not have the same family name as the child.
For what it's worth, the child could be traveling with an uncle (same family name) and a total stranger.
Thanks in advance for any info!
Best Answer
If the child is travelling with both parents, a birth certificate should suffice.
If the child is travelling with one parent only or with a stranger, then a legally notorized permission on paper by the other or both parents should be sent along.
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Answer 2
Thank you all for you answers!
Feedback after the travel : presenting the infant passport (with no indication of residence or adres) as well as the passports of two adults (one male one female, only one of which shares the same last name as the child) was enough to grant us access to the country.
Although I do trust the professionalism of border agents, I still wonder how these documents proved we were both parents traveling with our child. It could have been my brother (sharing my last name) and an unrelated woman, and the documents would have been very similar (and the attitude of a baby after a 7h flight during which he did not sleep is difficult to gauge, at best).
Never the less, we had a great stay!
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