Citizenship test: Collective action required, or expect endless delays, years. Example of the effective lobbyng of people awaiting spousal sponsorship

[fr72]

So what is your reason of panicking to get Citizenship? I can understand if your home country has issues, and looking at your comment, it looks like you are from India so don't think there are issues there assuming you are not from Kashmir or some troubled region, or are you going to join the military here in Canada and need citizenship for that?

I know Citizenship is a good step, but I am not understanding the reason for this urgency that we need to go and protest? May be I am missing some critical point here.

First admit you were wrong about US.

Next, my reason is that I dont trust conservatives. Election can happen in Fall/Spring and they can come in and change rules for citizenship drastically. That's it.

 

[vegasIndian]

First admit you were wrong about US.

Next, my reason is that I dont trust conservatives. Election can happen in Fall/Spring and they can come in and change rules for citizenship drastically. That's it.

Admit wrong about what? I know so many people who are not H1B and on L1A or L1B who moved to Canada for this purpose. H1B is not the only thing which is making people move to Canada from US. So please don't try to say that Canadian Citizenship is not being used for TN.
And there are also people who had their H1B's rejected that moved to Canada. So do'nt just think that H1b's are the only one who are moving to Canada and want to move to US through this route. And as I mentioned earlier, the person who I replied to, is waiting for citizenship for Work purposes.

Conservatives can't change just by winning election. It is a 1 year process. That is why we have Citizenship test to understand the process how something becomes a law. And without facts its just called Fear mongering. No one has even commented about changing citizenship rules. Even when it happened earlier the applications which were in process already were not cancelled due to rule change. I have friends who applied during that time.

 

[vegasIndian]

I'll respond with a few points as to why citizenship is important. These have already been mentioned before. I'm just re-iterating here so that people can appreciate it better in one place:

1. Suffrage: The right to vote is a fundamentally important aspect of liberal democratic societies. Inaction by the government amounts to systematic disenfranchisement of 85,000 Canadian residents who would otherwise have a voice in choosing their leaders.
2. Run for office: A permanent resident cannot run for office. Therefore they have no opportunity to propose or shape laws that affect them.
3. Equal treatment under the law: The punishment for breaking the law is far higher for permanent residents. Permanent residents can have their citizenship denied and even deported when charged with certain crimes. These charges can be made in another country even those with weak legal structures. A Canadian citizen on the other hand can have multiple appeals and eventually resume normal life in Canada. A common example is drunk driving, wherein a citizen has their driver's license taken away whereas a permanent resident is deported. See link1, link2, link3 for more details.
4. Humanitarian reasons: Many permanent residents have aging relatives in their home countries. Long term and compassionate care is very challenging when the PR has to maintain their status in Canada.
5. Equal employment opportunity: Certain jobs are only available to Canadian citizens. e.g. those with national security interests.
6. Equal business opportunity: A Canadian passport helps with visa-free freedom of movement to many western countries in particular our southern neighbor, the world's largest economy. Permanent residents with weak passports are at a systemic disadvantage in sealing business deals and raising funds. This has a fairness component to it as well since most countries with weak passports tend to be racialized.
7. Social contract: The reasons civilized societies function is that there's a social contract. You work hard, you follow the law and you get what you were promised. The system only works if promises are kept. Otherwise, people stop doing the morally upright thing and chaos ensues.

Thank you for listing them, but except for point 4 and 5, I don't see anything which is really urgent that would make you go and protest. And for point 4 and 5 there is already a process in place for expediting the citizenship process. For Point 3, I think its an issue with timing, if they are breaking the law, it can happen anytime, don't think its a valid reason for ugency of citizenship.

Anyhow, Thanks for this reply. This is a really good answer!

 

[deadbird]

Thank you for listing them, but except for point 4 and 5, I don't see anything which is really urgent that would make you go and protest. And for point 4 and 5 there is already a process in place for expediting the citizenship process. For Point 3, I think its an issue with timing, if they are breaking the law, it can happen anytime, don't think its a valid reason for ugency of citizenship.

Anyhow, Thanks for this reply. This is a really good answer!

Things can be important/not important and urgent/not urgent. I hope that my explanation clarifies that citizenship is important as certain fundamental aspects of Canadian society are at stake. As to urgent one must ask the question "what is the cost of delaying?".

For 1) and 2) New Brunswick and British Columbia have already announced snap elections since the pandemic started (see link). Entire election outcomes could have changed. Further the federal government is a minority and fresh elections are on the horizon. Newly minted citizens could very well change the future of the economy, environment and the country. Further due to Covid, human lives are at stake.

For 3) you're absolutely right it's an issue with timing. People with different timelines have very different outcomes. Consider two friends, Bob and Gary who had a drink too many during a Christmas party. Due to the heavy snow there was no uber available and the restaurant was closing. They both decided it wasn't safe to drive back. However, it was too cold, so they decided to sleep off the booze in their respective cars with the heater running. Unfortunately, for them a cop was lying in wait in the parking lot and charged them both for operating a vehicle under intoxication. Bob being a Canadian citizen only had his license suspended and spent the night in the drunk tank. Gary, a permanent resident with his citizenship application pending, on the other hand was charged with serious crimes per bill C-46. He not only lost his driver's license but his job, house, friends and was deported without appeal. Gary basically lost his life in Canada.
The point is that permanent residents are at a constant risk of being subjected to very harsh penalties even if their crime happens by accident. The severity of the punishment makes acquiring citizenship quite urgent. The cost of delaying citizenship is subjecting oneself to great risk and unequal treatment under the law.

Is it true that 4) and 5) are reasons for expediting the application from start to finish ? My understanding is that the citizenship test is still suspended. Only oaths are being expedited.

 

[tosinosho1992]

I'm with everyone here and I support the push for alternatives. However, I just got reminded by an immigration lawyer today that citizenship is a 'priviledge' not a 'right' so the government won't budge to any pressure.

 

[fr72]

Conservatives can't change just by winning election. It is a 1 year process. That is why we have Citizenship test to understand the process how something becomes a law. And without facts its just called Fear mongering. No one has even commented about changing citizenship rules. Even when it happened earlier the applications which were in process already were not cancelled due to rule change. I have friends who applied during that time.

Have you noticed what is happening south of the border? Trump has been able to block non citizens including permanent residents from entering the country without passing laws. I wont put it past the conservatives here to do something similar and then make non citizens miss their ROs or find some other loophole to effectively invalidate applications. Sometimes you have to get your head out of the book and look at the real world.

 

[vegasIndian]

Things can be important/not important and urgent/not urgent. I hope that my explanation clarifies that citizenship is important as certain fundamental aspects of Canadian society are at stake. As to urgent one must ask the question "what is the cost of delaying?".

For 1) and 2) New Brunswick and British Columbia have already announced snap elections since the pandemic started (see link). Entire election outcomes could have changed. Further the federal government is a minority and fresh elections are on the horizon. Newly minted citizens could very well change the future of the economy, environment and the country. Further due to Covid, human lives are at stake.

For 3) you're absolutely right it's an issue with timing. People with different timelines have very different outcomes. Consider two friends, Bob and Gary who had a drink too many during a Christmas party. Due to the heavy snow there was no uber available and the restaurant was closing. They both decided it wasn't safe to drive back. However, it was too cold, so they decided to sleep off the booze in their respective cars with the heater running. Unfortunately, for them a cop was lying in wait in the parking lot and charged them both for operating a vehicle under intoxication. Bob being a Canadian citizen only had his license suspended and spent the night in the drunk tank. Gary, a permanent resident with his citizenship application pending, on the other hand was charged with serious crimes per bill C-46. He not only lost his driver's license but his job, house, friends and was deported without appeal. Gary basically lost his life in Canada.
The point is that permanent residents are at a constant risk of being subjected to very harsh penalties even if their crime happens by accident. The severity of the punishment makes acquiring citizenship quite urgent. The cost of delaying citizenship is subjecting oneself to great risk and unequal treatment under the law.

Is it true that 4) and 5) are reasons for expediting the application from start to finish ? My understanding is that the citizenship test is still suspended. Only oaths are being expedited.

Thank you again for replying.

I think you are making a case of why should a person apply for citizenship ASAP rather than why its an urgency of getting your citizenship or if IRCC should process in Urgency. Under the Covid situation, the whole world is in a lockdown, its not IRCC are willfully and knowingly delaying the applications and niether are they delaying so as to snatch your vote. The situation currently is like that.

1) and 2) yes voting is important, but does it require IRCC to really go and work on your citizenship application? No.

For 3), the person committing the crime is at fault. It is his choice to break the law. It may be urgent factor for him to get citizenship so that he gets a lighter sentence for his crime, but do you think you would give this reason to IRCC to expedite your application? Please try.

Also, before Covid it used to take 1 year around for getting citizenship and these reasons would hold good even then.

So why urgency now that you want to go and protest?

 

[vegasIndian]

Have you noticed what is happening south of the border? Trump has been able to block non citizens including permanent residents from entering the country without passing laws. I wont put it past the conservatives here to do something similar and then make non citizens miss their ROs or find some other loophole to effectively invalidate applications. Sometimes you have to get your head out of the book and look at the real world.

Lol, You are so infatuated by US. I am pretty sure you are also waiting for TN visa. Why should I care about that country, when I am here. And as of now, i haven't see one govt official or a politician saying anything about this changing the laws. Read the citizenship test book and understand how laws are made here. Its not a one night wonder like India.

People are fearing to go out of house, and you think the politicians want to have an election then? Why do you think Trump is not locking down the country? Why do you think he wanted to postpone the election even though he can't ? You don't need to take your head out of the book so much that you loose track of what you were reading actually.

This level of fear-mongering is not required.

 

[vegasIndian]

I don't think that "I need Citizenship so I can leave Canada and work in another country" and "I need Citizenship so I can break the law" will help your case should you decide to protest.

Totally agree, this is for the person to decide if he want to apply urgently based on his/her situation. But this doesn't give a reason for IRCC to treat this applicants as urgent that they should risk their health and family's health to work on citizenship applications.
Yes this is a perfect chance to improve the process but that doesn't mean we need to go and protest.

 

[sachinsoman1988]

Lol, You are so infatuated by US. I am pretty sure you are also waiting for TN visa. Why should I care about that country, when I am here. And as of now, i haven't see one govt official or a politician saying anything about this changing the laws. Read the citizenship test book and understand how laws are made here. Its not a one night wonder like India.

People are fearing to go out of house, and you think the politicians want to have an election then? Why do you think Trump is not locking down the country? Why do you think he wanted to postpone the election even though he can't ? You don't need to take your head out of the book so much that you loose track of what you were reading actually.

This level of fear-mongering is not required.

You are right. There are a lot who got frustrated because their plan did not go well with TN visa!! I have made the point before - If govt inserts TN visa to PR holders, 2/3rd of protests for delay of citizenship wont exist. They will move happily to US and wait for the outcome of citizenship from there. I agree that the people will be anxious because of excitement or lack of information related to their application but absolutely noone would stage a protest because there are no good use cases for the same. If there are cases where the demand of citizenship is for employment or national interest, there is a request process for that. Also, People can go to courts if the govt violated the law or the constitution to delay the citizenship application.

No use in arguments here. Everyone knows the truth behind the all these instigating comments/posts!! Lets not waste our energy to respond to these folks and lets continue to ignore the infuriating posts here!!

 

[deadbird]

Thank you again for replying.

I think you are making a case of why should a person apply for citizenship ASAP rather than why its an urgency of getting your citizenship or if IRCC should process in Urgency. Under the Covid situation, the whole world is in a lockdown, its not IRCC are willfully and knowingly delaying the applications and niether are they delaying so as to snatch your vote. The situation currently is like that.

1) and 2) yes voting is important, but does it require IRCC to really go and work on your citizenship application? No.

For 3), the person committing the crime is at fault. It is his choice to break the law. It may be urgent factor for him to get citizenship so that he gets a lighter sentence for his crime, but do you think you would give this reason to IRCC to expedite your application? Please try.

Also, before Covid it used to take 1 year around for getting citizenship and these reasons would hold good even then.

So why urgency now that you want to go and protest?

You make a fair point and thanks for the respectful discussion.

Basically, if I'm following your argument, the question is whether it's fair to ask IRCC to speed up citizenship processing at the cost of the safety of IRCC officials. I think it's good to clarify what the protesters are asking. They're asking for IRCC to commit to a reasonable timeline (maybe 6 months) to resume normal citizenship tests. The argument that it's too risky for IRCC employees and they deserve special treatment doesn't hold water; given that several government employees are back at work e.g. school teachers, service canada employees and health care workers to name a few. Transparency is the keyword.

The other argument against resuming citizenship tests is that precious IRCC resources have to be diverted from something more urgent towards citizenship tests. This also doesn't hold water since there's no evidence that IRCC employees are doing anything else. They certainly aren't working in long term care homes. So what are they doing?

For 3) Sometimes you don't have a choice and can be wrongly charged of a crime. I'll give you a few examples:
a) Suppose one is participating in a black lives matter protest (if on the left), or in an anti-mask protest (if on the right). It's entirely possible that violence might randomly break out and the police might hold them accountable for inciting violence simply for being there. It was not their choice but they were guilty by association. Given that there's a risk of being wrongly accused, should a permanent resident sacrifice their duties as a responsible citizen and simply stay at home? The choice is not whether to commit a crime but whether to exercise your civic duty.
b) Suppose your spouse is in a foreign country with weak legal protections. Now suppose that you and your spouse have had a disagreement and he/she is vindictive. Your spouse could file a case in the foreign country accusing you of domestic violence and report it to the Canadian embassy. If the case is upheld in the foreign court with weak evidence then your PR status would be revoked and you would be deported without appeal. There was no choice to commit a crime here? You were simply a victim of malice. Btw, I'm not making this up. I know first hand someone who went through a similar ordeal and eventually lost their job and had to leave the country.

Therefore there's an urgency to acquire citizenship since this allows new immigrants to be fully engaged members of society with equal protections and opportunities. Further, we are all getting used to living under pandemic for the foreseeable future. IRCC has not demonstrated the undue burden they are facing to keep citizenship tests cancelled indefinitely without any transparency.

 

[dpenabill]

Observation: there was a confidence vote in Parliament just early this morning. It was unanimous. No election.

Beyond that, while I agree that it is time for IRCC to make a diligent effort to resume all aspects of citizenship application processing, including testing knowledge of Canada and interviews, it warrants a reminder that much of the case for prioritizing knowledge of Canada testing is rooted in a grossly disproportionate emphasis on individual or personal interests, with rather minimal regard for the nature and extent of broad, variable, and complex interests which factor into government decision-making, both on the macro level, such as Parliamentary decisions determining what the law is, and on the micro and logistical level, such as making and implementing administrative decisions, including as to particular practices and procedures, as well as all that in-between, such as formulating and adopting regulations and general policy guidelines.

Of course the impact of laws, rules, policies, and related decisions, on individuals affected by those, is a significant factor included in consideration of the broad, variable, and complex interests which factor into government decision-making. However, that impact is only ONE factor. And the weight which is given this ONE factor depends a great deal on the nature of the impact. Inconvenience tends to have rather little weight. A profound compromise of fundamental rights, in contrast and at the other end of the spectrum, not only carries more weight, the Charter mandates that laws, regulations, rules, and decisions that compromise or take away fundamental rights be fully vetted and limited to what other compelling interests actually require.

And in this regard, it warrant noting and highlighting that there is an important and definitive difference in the nature and rank of PR travel rights relative to travel within Canada versus international travel. This is explicit in the Charter of Rights, which specifically distinguishes the international travel rights of Canadian citizens as a protected fundamental right AND specifically LIMITS the scope of what is a protected right for Permanent Residents. In particular, PRs do NOT have a protected right to international travel in Canadian law.

This illustrates that the impact on a PR's ability to travel outside Canada does NOT appear to carry much weight in the law or policies governing PRs. In large part, Canadian policy appears to let the PR's home country determine the scope of a PR's capacity to travel internationally. (Whether or not one agrees this is how it should be.) Which means the impact on how a delay in obtaining citizenship will affect a PR's right to travel abroad is NOT LIKELY to carry much weight in arguments for prioritizing testing of citizenship applicants.

Note too that IRCC has NO AUTHORITY to waive knowledge of Canada testing for adults who are not exempt. NONE. This is simply something that IRCC CANNOT do. Period. End of story.





Not sure what the connection to the U.S. is, but I sense some channeling of U.S. Senator Lindsay Graham happening here, "run the tape," for all the good that might do. Which has generated the rather apropos response to the Senator: you have no honour.

 

[Aktars]

Totally agree, this is for the person to decide if he want to apply urgently based on his/her situation. But this doesn't give a reason for IRCC to treat this applicants as urgent that they should risk their health and family's health to work on citizenship applications.
Yes this is a perfect chance to improve the process but that doesn't mean we need to go and protest.

Hey. You don't have an urgent need and can wait longer, that is great for you. Why are you writing so many posts asking people for their reasons and needs and discouraging them? Why asking people if they will join the military? I mean why are you even following (creeping) this thread when you don't have anything constructive to add?

 

[piotrqc]

A famous proverb in French says "Diviser pour mieux régner". Approximative English translation: ''Divide peoples, to rule better''.

Please! My friends, let's not get into bickering that isn't productive, and ignore people who try to get us off topic.

I suggest that we be efficient, pragmatic, and that we focus on what interests us, time is running out, as our friend, the honorable @deadbird so aptly summed up:

Hey folks. I don't want to be alarmist. But I think our window is closing for in-person group activism. E.g. gathering in Ottawa or in front of IRCC offices. Covid is predicted to spike in about a month (see https://covid19.healthdata.org/canada?view=infections-testing&tab=trend&test=infections) and is already starting up in Quebec and Ontario. E.g. Montreal has been put on red alert - https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/covid-19-montreal-quebec-city-highest-alert-level-1.5741399

Soon, public gatherings will be restricted and governmental sympathy will move away to deal with the raging crisis. This means that no action will likely be taken for several months at the least.

Also, the liberal government has just survived the throne speech confidence vote so they might have a more lenient ear towards the plight of the 85000 citizenship applications in limbo.

So there's probably a good few weeks remaining to gather for protests and activism before we enter into increasing lockdown country wide. How do people suggest we organize nation wide on a single day of simultaneous mass protests countrywide? We probably need to coordinate with the media to drive the highest impact.

As everyone has seen very well, the spousal sponsors have mobilized and lobbying very effectively, and which, despite all the negativity that had been said when I tried to take them as an example here, in this forum (People who try in all ways to discourage, to say that it was useless, etc ...)

Also, other people have tried, and will try to tell us that we are not a priority ... Let's not pay attention to these negative and counterproductive comments ... We have nothing to lose from all the ways ... Now seems that this Chinese calamity will block our candidacies for citizenship for years and years (maybe even worse: a majority access to power by the conservatives = a return of our demands, with new more difficult rules). .. We therefore have nothing to lose by using the tools of legitimate pressure at our disposal, and which the Charter of Rights and Freedoms of Canada allows us, de jure.

In short, I suggest that we rely on the mobilization of spousal sponsors to inspire us, and also launch our actions.

Questions to ask ourselves in order to launch our action to demand virtual tests:

- How did they mobilize? How did they promote these simultaneous outings in several cities?
- See the examples of dates of exits they made, the day, the hour ... and all the parameters?
- In front of which IRCC CIC offices have they mobilized?
- Which media did they contact, and which media spoke about it?
- Are we ready to sacrifice a day, a Saturday for example, and go out ... Or we accept the status quo, and are okay to wait years and years, and also to take a possible risk that the conservatives return our requests?

** - New question specific to the province of Quebec: Do you have the right to meet? ... If so, under what conditions? (I think it is allowed for 25 people or less, but with conditions of social distance, masks).

 

[Seym]

** - New question specific to the province of Quebec: Do you have the right to meet? ... If so, under what conditions? (I think it is allowed for 25 people or less, but with conditions of social distance, masks).

Yeah, protests are allowed, and there's no limit to the number of protesters.
You'll need to have a mask obviously, with a 1000$ fine otherwise. Have a look here for Montréal maybe :
https://spvm.qc.ca/fr/Fiches/Details/Manifestation