Got my citizenship on th 29th of Oct 2015 in after more than two years of waiting. To add insult to injury they - 'that powers that be' - after having failed their own deadlines gave me the citizenship just 10 days AFTER the federal election, making sure that additional 4 years of my main citizenship democratic right - vote - would be thrown out of my life (life which is quite limited in time in comparison with the indefinite continuum of "bureaucratic monster")
They crammed everything together - one day for the test and the next day for the oath, as I assume (and I don't see any other rational explanation in this case), because at some point they got concerned about the time element, and, goes without saying, not because they bear a tinge of any responsibility (including the ethical one) before those Canadians whom they don't hurry to recognize as such, but because their own piles of paper were so high that the lower bureaucrats became afraid of the higher bureaucrats above them according to their own "mechanistic laws". At the same time - that's a matter of course - thereby demonstrating (unintentionally though be it) that they can - if they want - technically deal with all this paper pile orders of magnitude faster than they do in reality.
No doubt, I'm grateful to Canada personified, of course, BY THE NATION (as opposed to the state) - by the Canadians, i.d. Canadian People including my friends, colleagues etc - who really helped me to become Canadian, who really make Canadian citizens.
But only because I haven't been held in limbo even for a longer time - till my last day - and have finally got the recognition from the state, I'm not particularly inclined to jump for joy, and my frustration with and ethical claims against the present practice of the state to have ZERO responsibility before residents and to be able to indefinitely hold in limbo their citizenship applications is not less one iota for that matter. (needless to say, that the hope of that very state bureaucratic machine is that most of the 'victims' of the procrastination would be so happy after they have got the citizenship that they will actually be endlessly thanking this very machine afterwards.. almost like in the case of the Stockholm syndrome)
And I wouldn't miss the odd chance to send the message to my federal MP and other political forces, the media and the society - within the law and according to the legal rights and means I'm entitled to by the Canadian law and Constitution - to change this situation and introduce transparency and REAL (even to the point of creating Ombudsmen) responsibility, and the reasonableness of the deadlines for recognizing those Canadians as Canadians which, by all the state criteria, met the requirements and were Canadians at the moment of their actual application.
A relative of mine immigrated to Sweden (through quite a convoluted way through his education and PhD work). Sweden, just to clarify things, has never ever been a specifically immigration-oriented country in the modern and recent history. He, quite expectantly, got his permanent residency in Sweden much later than I did in Canada, but he was granted his citizenship.. wait for it.. much EARLIER than me (and thousands like me), which is of course good for him, but SHAME ON the Canadian state (again, not to be confused with Canada as a country and as the NATION, which I respect, like and thank).
. But if I'm wrong on that one and it can help in any way, I'd be only too glad.