I speculate not any time soon. Things are still unpredictable and fragile. Keep switching for IRCC is not am easy and smooth task.So we could get our citizenship certificate on the same we take the oath.
It's too soon to switch back. They will, but unlikely in the near future. If they switched, they would scrap the online test/oath, but what would happen if things didn't turn out to be stable, and they had to go back to online again? I would be surprised if they resumed in-person tests/oaths before the end of this year.My hope is that it happens soon. The problem with online is they simply do not have the same capacity as before. It’s taking way more resources and the logistics of online (even though it seems simple) is very complex. The risk is slowly becoming less and less and possibly by the summer I think it would be business as usual. That’s just my opinion. They might decide that this is the new norm but I can’t see that would be the case either.
We talked in length about this. We don't understand how IRCC thinks. Maybe more people in one zoom ceremony means more resources (time, staff, ..etc), and they need to balance with other application categories. We suggested at least in the summer to do mass ceremonies outside to clear 300-500 applicants at a time. It's doable. But there is no will from IRCC's part to take such an action. I heard however, they might allow people to sign the oath form before attending the ceremony, which would allow them to grant citizenship without the ceremony. I am not sure how much truth or practicality in this, though.The weird thing is, in our normal expectation, online oath ceremonies should be, of course, faster than in-person oath ceremonies. However, in reality, it does not work like that. We failed to see the fast pace of dealing with our cases. On the contrary, it seems to work slower than normal. Why don't they just squeeze more people in one Zoom meeting? considering the serious backlog of cases.