Association of Future Canadians

[eileenf]

The Association of Future Canadians has started a private Google group where we can exchange information about working together to address the unreasonable citizenship delays.

So far, there are discussions about:
1. meeting with MPs,
2. working with political parties to get them to support Fair and Timely Processing,
3. contact info for journalists writing about citizenship matters,
4. exploration of legal options and
5. organizing the creation of a press packet with basic information about the citizenship delays and people's RQ stories.

Please sign up with the Association if you are interested: http://residencequestionnaire.wordpress.com/association-of-future-canadians/

 

[eileenf]

Hey! We're organizing a twitter campaign for delayed citizenship applicants in Montreal and in Nova Scotia (where it's election season!)
We're tweeting photos of ourselves next to election signs and including text "X yrs in Canada, X yrs since I applied for cit, still can't vote. My city #sansvote #cicdelay"

It humanizes citizenship delay and shows concrete consequences. We can tweet to the politicians pictured too. If you don't want to do from your twitter, I can send it from the Association of Future Canadians twitter.

Please participate!
https://twitter.com/rq_blog/status/383664512198406144/photo/1
https://twitter.com/rq_blog/status/383625599773724672/photo/1

 

[eileenf]

During the city council debate in Toronto about extending municipal voting rights to permanent residents, I was disappointed to see how much ignorance the city councilors displayed regarding the current citizenship process. I was also disappointed to see that none of us that know the process better went to the meeting to give public comment (not sure how that process works here). Many councilors based their "no" votes on the idea that the citizenship process was relatively easy and speedy. They believed that those without citizenship simply hadn't "bothered" to apply, when in fact for many of us, it is Canada that simply hasn't "bothered" to look at our applications for years on end. Some mentioned that their grandparents had gotten citizenship and based their understanding of the citizenship process on how it worked 40-50 years ago.

This is why it's important to write letters to the editor and speak publicly about the difficulties of the process. People don't know. We do. We can advocate for ourselves by informing them.

Is anyone going to the Open Dialogue on Municipal voting rights on 16 January in Toronto? If so, please get in touch!
http://ocasi.org/sites/default/files/OpenDialogueVoting_Flyr_v5.pdf