Any Help From the New Minister Chris Alexander?

[Canuto]

I had enough of this waiting game and I guess some of you folks in this forum as well. I hope that this will reach the New Minister Chris Alexander, sort of a distress call.

What's up with these 25 months of processing or worst if the applicant's files are in question (RQ, fingerprint, etc)then will jacked up the waiting time to 35 months or more? some of them are now in their 3rd and 4th year of waiting? Of course there are security measures that needs to be undertaken and not open the floodgates to criminals,thugs and terrorists. But not all applicants are in that category. Why are we sort of being deprived of our Great Canadian Dream?
Why not increase your manpower in CIC to smoothen out the bottleneck of IN PROCESS applicants?

What's up with that 2 to 3 months of waiting time to get the result of the written test? There are only 20 questions and its multiple choice, its not even an essay writting or connect the dots questionaires. Right there on the spot a candidate who reviewed the Discovery magazine could answer and finished it in less than 10 minutes. How difficult is that to check their answers. The Proctors could check a single candidate's answers in less than 2 minutes. But then again, the former minister fired some of them.

Just FYI, and I'm sure some of you knows that, when Chris A. was the Ambassador in Afghanistan, he was responsible for saving the lives of these Afghani translators and their families who worked and accompanied our Canadian soldiers during their daily tour/patrols in the war zone. By fast tracking their Permanent Residency applications, after serving side by side with our troops in the war. I can attest to it and knew some of these Afghani families here in Edmonton. So he is not a bad guy after all.

Any prompt and fast action on these issues will be much highly appreciated by almost 350,000 Citizenship applicants.
ALL THE BEST!!!!

 

[EasyRider]

What's up with that 2 to 3 months of waiting time to get the result of the written test? There are only 20 questions and its multiple choice, its not even an essay writting or connect the dots questionaires. Right there on the spot a candidate who reviewed the Discovery magazine could answer and finished it in less than 10 minutes. How difficult is that to check their answers. The Proctors could check a single candidate's answers in less than 2 minutes. But then again, the former minister fired some of them.

That was fixed in June, now they tell results at the test time and allow retesting in case of failing instead of hearing with citizenship judge.

http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/department/media/releases/2013/2013-06-03a.asp
http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/resources/manuals/bulletins/2013/ob530.asp

 

[newtone]

Depends what kind of help you are looking for. If its the processing of a few Afghan translators because their lives are in danger then yes he has done a great job and it looks good on the books for him and he can move up the political ladder such as he is doing now. But if its processing of 350,000 citizenship applications thats asking for a bit too much now. You also have to keep in mind he was put in this position by the Conservative therefore he will do the job in the most conservative way possible, which means inline with the Conservative agenda and for the interest of the Conservative Party.

 

[eileenf]

I had enough of this waiting game and I guess some of you folks in this forum as well. I hope that this will reach the New Minister Chris Alexander, sort of a distress call.
...Any prompt and fast action on these issues will be much highly appreciated by almost 350,000 Citizenship applicants.

Canuto and anyone else, I am available to edit any letters you would like to send to the new Minister or to you MP.
I have some sample letters on the RQ website as well: http://residencequestionnaire.wordpress.com/resources-for-rq-recipients/sample-letters-to-mps/

The minister will not check this forum to see how he's doing.

If we want help from the Minister, we have to make it more politically damaging for him NOT to help us than to help us. Politicians respond to political consequence.

There's no magic bullet to create political consequence. It's a long slog of talking to people, writing well reasoned and persuasive letters to the editor, communicating with our MPs and networking with the few agencies that are concerned about the citizenship delay (settlement agencies and the Canadian Council for Refugees). It's about speaking out about the ballooning backlog and unprecedented delays disenfranchising hundreds of thousands, not just us as individuals. It's speaking out AFTER we get our citizenship too. Not just saying "Goodbye and good luck" but saying "Now that I can vote, now that I have my citizenship, I will speak out even louder about the unreasonable and systematic citizenship delays."

This is a time to work on our own and work together.

 

[Canuto]

Eileenf, Thanks for the awesome link, yes go ahead and edit it. I will definitely send a letter to my MP here in Edmonton. I totally agree! Let our voices be heard!

Newtone, absolutley right!for putting myself back to reality. Bottomline it is the f#$%ing interest of the party.

Easyrider, glad to see that link as well. I will print out and bring this article with me on my exam date because a friend of mine had just taken his written test last July 4 in Edmonton and the proctor did not gave him the result and instead told him to wait in 2 to 3 months. I guess that proctor did not get the memo!

 

[eileenf]

Eileenf, Thanks for the awesome link, yes go ahead and edit it. I will definitely send a letter to my MP here in Edmonton. I totally agree! Let our voices be heard!

You're welcome. If the form or sample letters don't work for you, send me your final draft through the private messager and I can look it over for you.

 

[forevercanada]

Has anyone written to the minister directly before? Any favourable response?

Eileen, I read previously one of your posts saying you had sent letters to former minister. What was the response like?

 

[Swede]

Considering that the government is in austerity mode and is chasing a balanced budget I seriously doubt that any staff will be hired to CIC in the near future. So, unless efficiencies can be found in how cases are processed, don't expect any changes in processing times anytime soon.