My brother did everything outside canada just waiting for oath, now he is in Canada since February 2022, no email for oath or anything yet.
Not sure about if you have to email them when you arrive in Canada to start processing the rest of your application.
If IRCC (at this stage meaning the processing agent or citizenship officer responsible for the case in the local office) has asked for information about returning to Canada, of course the applicant should provide that information. Otherwise, generally, like everyone, BE SURE to keep IRCC informed as to the applicant's address (where the applicant is actually living, not some phony-baloney-address used to pretend to be living in Canada) and otherwise it is a waiting-game . . . which these days tends to still be a rather lengthy waiting game for all too many.
So, as stated, coming back to Canada to take the oath was never in question - I was always prepared to do that, and I've made that clear. I just didn't see why it would be necessary to stay in the country while the long application processing takes place. I'm ok with my application being treated differently, procedurally - as long as said treatment is still compliant with the citizenship law, which clearly lists the requirements one must satisfy to become a Canadian citizen, and staying in the country while citizenship is pending is not one of them. It is not "how I think things should work" - it is actually the current law (since 2017 or so). I think IRCC should not be sending communication that's perhaps adhering to the pre-2017 law.
Having to come back to take the oath is a legal requirement, I agree - and as stated I'm completely OK with that. I wouldn't mind receiving communication that reminds me of that. Instead, it seems to me like that they wanted me to come back to the country to make sure I would be physically present for the oath, but that's conflating different things, and perhaps not taking into account that applications take much longer to be completed these days than they used to (it used to be 6 months end to end).
As referenced, SOME local offices appear to require verification the applicant is IN Canada prior to scheduling the oath.
Other local offices appear to be satisfied if the applicant provides a planned date of return.
Yet it also appears that some applicants who are outside Canada are scheduled for the oath without either, without having to declare when they will be in Canada let alone providing documentation to show actual return to Canada.
Not all practices are uniform across the various local offices. Depends on the local office.
It is also possible, however, that even within a local office there is some variability in how applicants known to be abroad are handled.
To what extent the practices are reasonable, within the scope of what a Federal Court might rule, these various approaches probably pass the courts' reasonableness standards.
Whether this is as it should be in a broader, how-things-should-work perspective, here again there is no shortage of commentary in the forum.
In contrast I focus on sharing what we can learn about how things actually work. And, the way they work in regards to applicants outside Canada, the jury is still out in regards to how much there continues to be a risk that the applicant might be subject to elevated scrutiny (historically the risks have been significantly higher for those abroad after applying), and otherwise we see the variations in practices regarding affirmation of the applicant's return or presence in Canada.
As
@Dreamlad suggested, you could protest the way the office handling your application is proceeding, but frankly forecasting the effect of that is easy: near none if any at all.
You could make a demand similar to what a lawyer might do to set up the requisites for a Writ of Mandamus application. Or hire a lawyer to do that. I cannot forecast how that will go. Some forum anecdotal reporting indicates this effectively moves the process ahead, but the numbers are too low to draw conclusions of the efficacy of lawyer-made demands let alone those made by the applicant personally.
Edit to add note regarding "
I think IRCC should not be sending communication that's perhaps adhering to the pre-2017 law." There is no hint that the practices related to applicants abroad are about pre-2017 law.
If you are referencing the very briefly applicable provision in the Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act that imposed the intent to continue residing in Canada, which took effect in June 2015 but was no longer applied by the end of that year (and formally, completely repealed as of later in 2017), that is totally irrelevant to the process. There is a contingency in this forum which has made a concerted effort to conflate underlying rationales for elevated scrutiny of abroad applicants with that provision, but that has largely been an effort to press personal agendas and criticism of the process, and not rooted at all in what the rules are or have been, or actual policies and practices in applying the rules. That has caused much confusion.
That said, the particular practice (by just some local offices it appears) to verify the applicant is IN Canada before scheduling the oath is probably NOT related to elevated scrutiny but rather allocation of on-going limited resources. It may be temporary, about giving priority to candidates located in Canada until the huge backlog is resolved. Which again seems likely to pass the Federal Court's reasonableness standards, which is the parameter imposed by law, and to be sure, that is current law.
But it might otherwise be about reserving local office resources by simply not scheduling out-of-Canada applicants for the oath unless and until it is established the applicant is available to attend the oath IN Canada. This could be tested in the Federal Court, by the Mandamus process, and as I noted it is possible that the requisite pre-Mandamus demand itself may be enough incentive to get the oath scheduled.
