In the US, I'd advise somebody to log on to the State Department's web site, where there is all kinds of info about proof of citizenship for passports. Absent that, I'd have the person get in touch with his or her congresscritter's office. They have staffers who love to answer questions like this for constituents. I would assume there are Canadian analogs to both. I assume your mother was born in Canada. Under US law, anyone born in the US is a citizen, but I don't know if the same holds true in Canada.
Mom was born in Canada.
But what's the addy for the State Department's website?
It is true. If you were born here, your a Canadian citizen. Doesn't matter where your parents were born. Your birth certificate, if it's anything like mine, records where you were born, the name of your mother, the name of your father, the date and place of course, and the name of the doctor who delivered you. I don't know what year you were born but I was born in 1944.
CDN Outrage is correct. If you have a Canuck birth certificate you are a Canadian citizen. That should be all you need to obtain a passport, but of course you will need additional photo ID as well as a guarantors (sp?) certificate signed by a laywer, doctor or professional engineer that has known you for 5 years (all requirements spelled out explicitly on the Canadian passport form).