Executive Summary International law holds that a person is deemed stateless if no state considers her or him to be a citizen under the “operation of its law”. This is manifested in two ways: de jure statelessness, when no state law recognizes the person as a citizen, and secondly, de facto statelessness, when the person is, in theory, entitled to citizenship but is not recognized as such under the application of state law. Statelessness affects an estimated 10 million people worldwide, and can occur in myriad ways including ethnic and gender discrimination in nationality law, the exclusion of certain groups in post-secession or post-conflict nationality law, the complexity of naturalisation law, and the absence of birth registration. Statelessness is addressed in international law and several regional treaties. Notably, article 15 (1) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states “everyone has the right to a nationality”. There are currently two international treaties expressly dealing with the subject of statelessness: the 1954 Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons and the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness. These Conventions stipulate the rights and responsibilities of stateless persons and the states in which they reside. Stateless persons in Canada are made up of a complex and diverse group of people and statuses. Those who are not refugees do not have a clear path to legal status and are largely not protected by Canada’s legislation or policy. Stateless persons in Canada remain vulnerable to removal and do not qualify for settlement programs or social services, and are likely to be living in limbo. Data collection is essential to understanding the full scope of the problem of statelessness in Canada. This is necessary in order to ascertain who is stateless in Canada and to work to protect those who are vulnerable. It is also imperative to adhere to international norms, and engage in national solutions that can be used as models for other countries looking to improve their practices on statelessness. Recent research has found that Statistics Canada, Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, Citizenship and Immigration Canada, and Canadian Border Services Agency do not collect or report adequately data on stateless persons with respect to their demographic information, detention, entry or removals. This report is a follow up study to the 2012 UNHCR report Statelessness in the Canadian Context and investigates the statelessness data collection practices of Statistics Canada, Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, Citizenship and Immigration Canada, and the Canada Border Services Agency. Access to Information requests were submitted to these government agencies, and follow-up interviews with key government agency informants were conducted via telephone and email. Despite improvements in data collection practices made since 2012, notably on the part of the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada and the Canada Border Services Agency, this report finds that, overall, data collection and reporting practices are poor and in need of significant improvement in four broad ways:     defining statelessness; collection practices; reporting practices; and adherence to the 2012 UNHCR recommendations. iv