The physical presence requirement Amendments are not new for CIC because these Amendments were rules in just 2 years ago.
Very disappointed
Not true. Not anywhere near true.
The requirement prior to June 11, 2015 was a
residency requirement,
NOT a physical presence requirement. Many may not recognize the significance of this difference but actually it is a huge difference. Under the new rules merely being a resident of Canada, no matter for how long, how definitively one is settled in Canada, will not be sufficient, unlike the pre-2015 rules.
In particular, the pre-2015 rules required the applicant to be
resident-in-Canada for
three years in a period of
four years. Depending on the circumstances, time outside Canada could be counted toward meeting this requirement so long as the applicant was a resident in Canada, had centralized his or her life in Canada. While Citizenship Judges could apply an actual physical presence
test, CIC could not summarily reject an applicant who had less then 1095 days actual physical presence. Moreover, technically no days spent in Canada counted unless and until the individual established actual residence in Canada (under the new law, any days spent in Canada during the relevant time period, which again is now five years rather than the four years under the pre-2015 rules, even just part of the day, will count toward meeting the requirements). And the calculation was done differently, in effect counting midnights spent in Canada, whereas the new rules will, again, count all days including both days entering and days exiting Canada.
Compliance with tax filing requirements corresponding to the number of years of required presence was not a part of the older law (and Bill C-6 changes this from the Bill C-24 four calendar years out of six to a three out of five years requirement).
Among other changes.
A fall implementation date is actually fairly ambitious. Big bureaucracies tend to move slowly, perhaps more on a par with land masses than turtles or snails. Comparatively, fall is virtually akin to a jack rabbit pace.
In any event,
fall it will be. While many Canadians consider anything after Labour Day (first Monday in September) as fall (and indeed, around here many things like hot dog and ice cream stands tend to close for the season after Labour Day), it would be surprising, very surprising, to see the 3/5 rule take effect before the first of October, more likely the end of October or into November. Not worth trying to guess any more precise than that.
The government probably has a specific target date in mind which is not likely to change unless a logistical problem delays the process. No amount of urging an earlier date is likely to have influence.
