In general, for those who follow the citizenship application process as a matter of interest and who favour a positive, flexible, and reasonable path to citizenship for immigrants, the appointment of John McCallum to be the Minister of CIC should be fairly good news. He tends to wear the lower-case "liberal" description as much as he is formally a "Liberal."
And in general he appears to be a very good appointment for CIC.
And he is among perhaps only a few of the new Ministers who are clearly well-informed with the portfolio for the Ministry before he begins functioning as Minister (which is not to criticize those who will need to work hard just to learn their respective portfolio, but rather to recognize that John McCallum is indeed one of the most experienced Ministers, relative to the particular portfolio, in the new Cabinet). He knows his way around immigration and citizenship issues. (One of the big flaws for Chris Alexander was that he really did not display much more than a superficial grasp of the issues; his "explanations" during committee hearings related to Bill C-24, while it was still a pending Bill, could be painful to watch given how little command he appeared to have of what the Bill actually prescribed let alone understanding it in the context of how the changes affects practical issues.)
But this should NOT be taken to indicate major changes coming soon.
The new government is already announcing its key priorities, the items to be addressed in the short term (like middle class tax relief); so far I do not see citizenship requirements making either that list or the next to be addressed group of priorities.
Indeed, just for purposes of CIC, the media is identifying a number of priorities which do NOT include naturalization requirements.
For example, see http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/immigration-minister-john-mccallum-6-challenges-he-faces-1.3304602
Reminder, Parliament will not even be in session for nearly another month.
Change in tone:
My sense is that under Minister McCallum's leadership, the tone and style of CIC will change. This will come about slowly. Bureaucracies are very, very slow moving beasts, even when change is mandated by changes in the law. CIC is very much a typical, large, cumbersome bureaucracy in this regard. But, there are many aspects of how things are done at CIC which can change just by refocusing priorities and objectives. I believe Minister McCallum will lead CIC in a more open and flexible direction, less draconian (the rules about wearing facial coverings at citizenship ceremonies, for example, has finally changed to accommodate those who wish to not remove the covering during the giving of the oath . . . up to the time of the election, the Program Delivery Instructions continued to only say that changes were coming . . . while in the meantime the Conservatives continued to proceed toward further appeals).
The process of changing style and tone will also take time, but manifestations of this should become apparent sooner than statutory changes are made, and particularly so before there is any change in the naturalization requirements.
And in general he appears to be a very good appointment for CIC.
And he is among perhaps only a few of the new Ministers who are clearly well-informed with the portfolio for the Ministry before he begins functioning as Minister (which is not to criticize those who will need to work hard just to learn their respective portfolio, but rather to recognize that John McCallum is indeed one of the most experienced Ministers, relative to the particular portfolio, in the new Cabinet). He knows his way around immigration and citizenship issues. (One of the big flaws for Chris Alexander was that he really did not display much more than a superficial grasp of the issues; his "explanations" during committee hearings related to Bill C-24, while it was still a pending Bill, could be painful to watch given how little command he appeared to have of what the Bill actually prescribed let alone understanding it in the context of how the changes affects practical issues.)
But this should NOT be taken to indicate major changes coming soon.
The new government is already announcing its key priorities, the items to be addressed in the short term (like middle class tax relief); so far I do not see citizenship requirements making either that list or the next to be addressed group of priorities.
Indeed, just for purposes of CIC, the media is identifying a number of priorities which do NOT include naturalization requirements.
For example, see http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/immigration-minister-john-mccallum-6-challenges-he-faces-1.3304602
Reminder, Parliament will not even be in session for nearly another month.
Change in tone:
My sense is that under Minister McCallum's leadership, the tone and style of CIC will change. This will come about slowly. Bureaucracies are very, very slow moving beasts, even when change is mandated by changes in the law. CIC is very much a typical, large, cumbersome bureaucracy in this regard. But, there are many aspects of how things are done at CIC which can change just by refocusing priorities and objectives. I believe Minister McCallum will lead CIC in a more open and flexible direction, less draconian (the rules about wearing facial coverings at citizenship ceremonies, for example, has finally changed to accommodate those who wish to not remove the covering during the giving of the oath . . . up to the time of the election, the Program Delivery Instructions continued to only say that changes were coming . . . while in the meantime the Conservatives continued to proceed toward further appeals).
The process of changing style and tone will also take time, but manifestations of this should become apparent sooner than statutory changes are made, and particularly so before there is any change in the naturalization requirements.
