Hence the reason that the law says approx. one year for 4/6 rule to come into effect. Besides, how much training is needed to calculate 4 years out of 6 years. It is not that hard.
There is no such
law, nothing at all in Bill C-24 which says these provisions will come into effect in approximately one year.
The public announcement posted by CIC following the grant of Royal Assent (along with attendant "backgrounder" publications issued around the same time in June) is the only publicly published information provided regarding when these provisions will come into force. In that announcement, among the "quick facts" noted by CIC, is the following:
Citizenship applicants will need to be physically present in Canada for a total of four out of their last six years. In addition, they will need to be physically present in Canada for 183 days per year for at least four of those six years. These provisions will come into force in approximately a year.
That announcement has no official or formal impact. It does not require the Governor in Council to not order the remaining provisions to come into force for approximately a year. It is possible (though I do not think it likely) the effective date could be January 1, 2015. We do not know.
The real question is whether or not, and even if so to what extent, there will be notice before the date the new residency provisions come into force. I suspect there will be
some, but relatively minimal notice of the actual date.
Of course we already have notice that the new residency provisions will take effect. That was inherent in Bill C-24 obtaining Royal Assent.
Further note:
- Minister will make the decision without being required to hold a formal hearing (which means minister needs to learn the law in more formal ways)
The provisions which provide for this are NOW in effect, as of August 1st.
Perhaps it would not take a full year to prepare for this transition. But CIC was given six weeks from the date of Royal Assent, and one day's actual notice of when, this major change in procedure was to take effect.
That, one must acknowledge, is a likely clue about how thoroughly CIC will be prepared to implement the new residency (presence) requirements before the Governor in Council orders them to come into force.
Regarding how much preparation CIC will do prior to new law taking effect:
As many will say, the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior.
On July 31st the Governor in Council ordered that major provisions in Bill C-24 take effect the next day, August 1st. In addition to this including those provisions which all but eliminated the decision-making role of Citizenship Judges (now limited to deciding residency cases), also coming into effect as of August 1st were those provisions implementing major changes to the grounds and procedure governing the revocation of citizenship. Big deal stuff.
How much preparation did CIC do before the Governor in Council ordered these provisions to take effect? We do not know. But we do know that the formal announcement asking for public comment regarding the adoption of new regulations and amendments to existing regulations governing revocation procedures, was just published this week in the Gazette,
more than fourteen weeks AFTER the law went into effect.
In other words, CIC is just now beginning the process to adapt its procedures for provisions of law which have been in effect for well over three months, some
five months after the law was adopted.
There are good reasons for
canuck_in_uk to be laughing, even if none of those reasons are at all funny.
.
