Effective date of Bill C24

[MUFC]

Ever since I saw that intend in the Mid-March issue I also have the same feeling, that they are ready to pull the trigger.

I'm sure that the cut off date will jump out from the gazette which means that after the comment period everything is possible.

 

[Prospective Canuck]

I think that the date of implementation of C-24 will be 29 May 2015, the anniversary of (former) Prime Minister John Fitzgerald Kennedy's birth.

My method ain't no sillier than some of the convoluted, pachinko quality guesstimations that I have seen in here.

I rather suspect that even after the Honourable Chris Alexander personally shall have announced the date of implementation, with such being prominently displayed on the CIC website, some members of this
chat room will accuse the government of a measure of bad faith, and refuse to believe it, at least until the date is "confirmed" by 9 out of 10 supervisors at the call centre!

I know that it is frustrating for all, but I am sure that the CIC is not purposely withholding information, for any improper motive, nor has there been any official attempt to mislead!

Cheers!

 

[2_of_5]

Not that it will do much good, but I emailed my comments to the address in the Notice of Intent just now.

 

[CanadianCountry]

I believe that the majority would agree that there should be timely notice of the implementation date. 1 month atleast. But only time will tell if they provide any notice at all.

I think that the date of implementation of C-24 will be 29 May 2015, the anniversary of (former) Prime Minister John Fitzgerald Kennedy's birth.

My method ain't no sillier than some of the convoluted, pachinko quality guesstimations that I have seen in here.

I rather suspect that even after the Honourable Chris Alexander personally shall have announced the date of implementation, with such being prominently displayed on the CIC website, some members of this
chat room will accuse the government of a measure of bad faith, and refuse to believe it, at least until the date is "confirmed" by 9 out of 10 supervisors at the call centre!

I know that it is frustrating for all, but I am sure that the CIC is not purposely withholding information, for any improper motive, nor has there been any official attempt to mislead!

Cheers!

 

[MUFC]

I also have a feeling that nobody in CIC knows the date yet. It seems that the date will come at some point from the government and after that it will be published in the Gazette and on the CIC website.
Once it is published that's it. That means to be officially confirmed.

Everything else is just another portion of personal speculations.

 

[godhelp]

Is there a chance that they might
backdate the effective date like March 1, April 1 etc...

thanks,
Godhelp

 

[MUFC]

I just checked the calendar and it is interesting that if they want to implement it on 1st of July, the previous Gazette will be issued on 24th of June, which will give the possible one week notice in advance.

Which is again just a very possible speculation.

 

[dpenabill]

[Notice of IRPR amendments regarding sponsored partner provisions] was in the Gazette today, notice the difference in language when talking about the coming into force.

The link was: IRPR amendments regarding sponsored partner provisions

The coming into force date for these (immigration law) regulations, the IRPR, is the standard, the usual coming into force date for proposed regulations: the date the revised or added regulation is registered.

The difference for currently proposed amendments and additions to the Citizenship Regulations is that the proposals are dependent on statutory provisions which, while already adopted into law in the SCCA, have not yet themselves come into force.

The difference is illustrated by the difference between those changes in regulations proposed in the February 28 issue of the Gazette versus those proposed in the March 14 issue. For the Feb proposals, the notice included the proposed regulations themselves, which of course included the coming into force provision. That specifically recognized that the underlying statutory provisions are not yet in force themselves, so the coming into force provision for the proposed regulation is in the form of a conditional: if the applicable statutory provisions are in force before the proposed regulations are registered, those regulations will come into force when registered; if the applicable statutory provisions are not yet in force when the regulations are registered, the regulations will come into force when the respective statutory provisions come into force.

Since the March 14 notice did not include the proposed regulations themselves, there was no coming into force provision published with the notice. I do not know the particular requirements for how and when amended or added regulations may be registered and come into force, but it appears to me that (based on criteria I do not know) some regulations must be published in advance as as proposed (as those noticed in the Feb 28 Gazette) while others do not necessarily need to be.

Bottom line: I do not know whether we will see the proposed regulations adopted pursuant to the March 14 notice (notice in the Gazette March 14 without inclusion of specifically proposed regulations) published in advance of their being registered. These are of course the main regulations which will have a direct impact on what the application form requires once the revised residency requirements come into force. Even if we do see the proposed versions in advance, however, the coming into force provisions will undoubtedly look very much like those in the Feb 28 notice: to come into force when registered unless the respective statutory provisions are not yet in force, in which event they will come into force when the respective statutory provisions come into force.

In other words, they will offer minimal if any insight into when the revised residency provisions (statutory provisions) will actually come into force.

That said, make no mistake: the time is coming. It is highly likely (almost certain is my sense) that the effective date is now less than three months away.

All the speculation and guessing and reading of tea leaves aside, allowing for the low odds chance that the coming into force date will be later than July 1, 2015, this is most likely to happen by July 1 at the latest, some time within the next 90 days.

I believe that the majority would agree that there should be timely notice of the implementation date. 1 month at least. But only time will tell if they provide any notice at all.

Too true. My guess, some advance notice, but it could be just a week or two, perhaps just days. Emphasis, though, that this is just a guess.

I also have a feeling that nobody in CIC knows the date yet. It seems that the date will come at some point from the government and after that it will be published in the Gazette and on the CIC website.
Once it is published that's it. That means to be officially confirmed.

What will be official is the Order issued by the Governor in Council, which will specifically state the date the remaining provisions in the SCCA will come into force. Once that is issued it will be published in the Gazette, but it can take two weeks or longer after such an order is issued for it to be published in the Gazette.

That Order is itself not a form of notice but rather is part of the official procedure for implementing the acts of Parliament as prescribed in the legislation itself, in the provisions governing the coming into force of the adopted provisions.

The order can specify a date as soon as the very next day after the Order is issued. This is precisely what happened last August. The Order itself was issued July 31, 2015, specifying certain provisions of the SCCA to come into force on August 1, 2015. This Order was not published in the Gazette until weeks later. A news release was, however, published in CIC's online site sometime during the day August 1.

As noted before, obviously this could be how it is done for the provisions amending the residency requirements. That is, for example, the Governor in Council could issue the Order June 30, specifying that the coming into force date is July 1, 2015, and the first notice we see will be when CIC publishes notice of it at the CIC website. The order will not appear in the Gazette until mid-July at the soonest, many days if not weeks after the actual coming into force date.

Or, the Governor in Council could issue the Order any day now, specifying some date in the (near) future as the coming into force date. Given the import of this particular Order, and the fact that it would be public information immediately even if not formally published or noticed, it is highly likely CIC would issue a formal news release, so we would know of the order soon even though again it would take some time for it to be formally published in the Gazette. This is how advance notice, if there is any, will be given.

Thus, just as a totally hypothetical example, the Governor in Council could issue an order on May 18th ordering the SCCA provisions to come into force on June 1, and we would probably see this in a news release from CIC on May 19 with contemporaneous news stories in online media. For other examples pick any day between now and late June as the date the Order is issued, and pick June 1 or July 1 as the date ordered. Amount of notice could range from several weeks (that window is shrinking rapidly now) to just days, down to no advance notice.

In the meantime, I anticipated the prospect of more or less credible rumours to be emerging from CIC by now, but it appears that even if there are rumours they are lost in the noise of speculation.


For emphasis, a reminder:

All that said, make no mistake: the time is coming. It is highly likely (almost certain is my sense) that the effective date is now less than three months away.

All the speculation and guessing and reading of tea leaves aside, allowing for the low odds chance that the coming into force date will be later than July 1, 2015, this is most likely to happen by July 1 at the latest, some time within the next 90 days.

 

[Prospective Canuck]

More so than with the mere opinion, however well-intentioned, of a Call Centre representative, I tend to agree with dpenabill, in his estimation as to a likely date of implementation. His insights are based upon solid research and an admirable knowledge of the subject.

In all fairness to the CIC, on 19 June 2014, IMMEDIATELY upon passage and Royal Assent of C-24, the Honourable Minister Chris Alexander released 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."

[emphasis added]

This measure of transparency brought comfort to those well within the one year period, and understandably, frustration to those whose "window of opportunity" should be close to that date.

I have no reason to believe that the CIC has already decided upon a precise date of implementation, and that they are withholding such from the public for malicious purposes.

It may well be that they have not yet concluded a date by which the CIC staff will be ready to process cases under the new guidelines, yet they want to maintain a date true to the "approximately a year" period.

I have noted much unfounded speculation here, some accusing the upper management of the CIC of improprieties, such as "anti-foreign" sentiment (we foreigners are the CIC's chief customers!). Other complaints involve the CIC's deliberate frustration of the "good faith" aspirations of self-admitted prospective Canadians of convenience!

Rather than to spook each other out, or offer false expectations, which would guide our actions and our lives, I suggest that we prepare, as much as possible, for a date of implementation within the general "approximately a year" period.

Perhaps we should sit back and refrain from incessant, frantic calls to the Call Centre, and instead discuss Camus, and otherwise prepare, as the date of implementation stealthily approaches.

As Camus once quipped:

“If there were a party of those who aren't sure they're right, I'd belong to it".

Let's party, friends!

 

[us2yow]

A nice potent mojito for me please ! ;D

Did someone say Camus ?

 

[MUFC]

I support the idea of dpenabill that the news section of the CIC website will most likely put the cut off date faster than the Gazette.

I also support the idea given from Prospective Canuck that calling for information regarding the cut off date from the CIC call centre is useless.

 

[CanadianCountry]

Glad to have somebody like dpenabill on this forum.

The link was: IRPR amendments regarding sponsored partner provisions

The coming into force date for these (immigration law) regulations, the IRPR, is the standard, the usual coming into force date for proposed regulations: the date the revised or added regulation is registered.

The difference for currently proposed amendments and additions to the Citizenship Regulations is that the proposals are dependent on statutory provisions which, while already adopted into law in the SCCA, have not yet themselves come into force.

The difference is illustrated by the difference between those changes in regulations proposed in the February 28 issue of the Gazette versus those proposed in the March 14 issue. For the Feb proposals, the notice included the proposed regulations themselves, which of course included the coming into force provision. That specifically recognized that the underlying statutory provisions are not yet in force themselves, so the coming into force provision for the proposed regulation is in the form of a conditional: if the applicable statutory provisions are in force before the proposed regulations are registered, those regulations will come into force when registered; if the applicable statutory provisions are not yet in force when the regulations are registered, the regulations will come into force when the respective statutory provisions come into force.

Since the March 14 notice did not include the proposed regulations themselves, there was no coming into force provision published with the notice. I do not know the particular requirements for how and when amended or added regulations may be registered and come into force, but it appears to me that (based on criteria I do not know) some regulations must be published in advance as as proposed (as those noticed in the Feb 28 Gazette) while others do not necessarily need to be.

Bottom line: I do not know whether we will see the proposed regulations adopted pursuant to the March 14 notice (notice in the Gazette March 14 without inclusion of specifically proposed regulations) published in advance of their being registered. These are of course the main regulations which will have a direct impact on what the application form requires once the revised residency requirements come into force. Even if we do see the proposed versions in advance, however, the coming into force provisions will undoubtedly look very much like those in the Feb 28 notice: to come into force when registered unless the respective statutory provisions are not yet in force, in which event they will come into force when the respective statutory provisions come into force.

In other words, they will offer minimal if any insight into when the revised residency provisions (statutory provisions) will actually come into force.

That said, make no mistake: the time is coming. It is highly likely (almost certain is my sense) that the effective date is now less than three months away.

All the speculation and guessing and reading of tea leaves aside, allowing for the low odds chance that the coming into force date will be later than July 1, 2015, this is most likely to happen by July 1 at the latest, some time within the next 90 days.



Too true. My guess, some advance notice, but it could be just a week or two, perhaps just days. Emphasis, though, that this is just a guess.



What will be official is the Order issued by the Governor in Council, which will specifically state the date the remaining provisions in the SCCA will come into force. Once that is issued it will be published in the Gazette, but it can take two weeks or longer after such an order is issued for it to be published in the Gazette.

That Order is itself not a form of notice but rather is part of the official procedure for implementing the acts of Parliament as prescribed in the legislation itself, in the provisions governing the coming into force of the adopted provisions.

The order can specify a date as soon as the very next day after the Order is issued. This is precisely what happened last August. The Order itself was issued July 31, 2015, specifying certain provisions of the SCCA to come into force on August 1, 2015. This Order was not published in the Gazette until weeks later. A news release was, however, published in CIC's online site sometime during the day August 1.

As noted before, obviously this could be how it is done for the provisions amending the residency requirements. That is, for example, the Governor in Council could issue the Order June 30, specifying that the coming into force date is July 1, 2015, and the first notice we see will be when CIC publishes notice of it at the CIC website. The order will not appear in the Gazette until mid-July at the soonest, many days if not weeks after the actual coming into force date.

Or, the Governor in Council could issue the Order any day now, specifying some date in the (near) future as the coming into force date. Given the import of this particular Order, and the fact that it would be public information immediately even if not formally published or noticed, it is highly likely CIC would issue a formal news release, so we would know of the order soon even though again it would take some time for it to be formally published in the Gazette. This is how advance notice, if there is any, will be given.

Thus, just as a totally hypothetical example, the Governor in Council could issue an order on May 18th ordering the SCCA provisions to come into force on June 1, and we would probably see this in a news release from CIC on May 19 with contemporaneous news stories in online media. For other examples pick any day between now and late June as the date the Order is issued, and pick June 1 or July 1 as the date ordered. Amount of notice could range from several weeks (that window is shrinking rapidly now) to just days, down to no advance notice.

In the meantime, I anticipated the prospect of more or less credible rumours to be emerging from CIC by now, but it appears that even if there are rumours they are lost in the noise of speculation.


For emphasis, a reminder:

All that said, make no mistake: the time is coming. It is highly likely (almost certain is my sense) that the effective date is now less than three months away.

All the speculation and guessing and reading of tea leaves aside, allowing for the low odds chance that the coming into force date will be later than July 1, 2015, this is most likely to happen by July 1 at the latest, some time within the next 90 days.

 

[dpenabill]

Regarding Whether Or Not Decision Already Made As To Coming Into Force Date:

I do not know any more than anyone else whether the decision as to the coming into force date has been specifically decided as yet.

But, it is NOT a decision made by CIC.

It is a decision made, in form, by the "Governor in Council," which as best I can discern really means a decision made by the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) in consultation with some Cabinet members, and issued in the name of the "Governor in Council," which so far as I can discern is not an independent body or stand-alone position as such (that is, there is no particular individual who is the "Governor in Council").

Minister Alexander may or may not be directly involved in making that decision, although it is quite likely that Minister Alexander has been, at the least, consulted. It is also quite likely, however, that he is not who has the main say in making this decision. That is probably Stephen Harper himself.

Whether the decision has been in fact made is one thing, something again I know no more about than any one else here. But my opinion is that there was a firm date in mind as of a long while ago, that in the practical sense the decision was made well before now, and that, in essence, CIC was given marching orders to do X Y and Z in preparation, with deadlines dictating when those tasks were to be completed. Those deadlines would be a clue, if we knew them, but they would not necessarily directly indicate the date picked.

There is undoubtedly, however, no grand conspiracy, no scheme to interfere with or undermine any particular group of immigrants. There are probably policy considerations, such as concerns about the extent to which advance notice might result in the crooked-consultant industry gearing up to get applications into the pipeline right before the coming-into-force date. Perhaps even concerns about a last minute rush of applications in general.

This particular government tends to give minimal notice other than that which is specifically required by law, in almost all its dealings. So the minimal lack of specific notice for the coming-into-force date is not something specifically about how this government treats immigrants. It is about how this government does business, how this government treats everyone.



The absence of credible rumours:

We know that Stephen Harper runs probably the tightest ship ever in the history of the Canadian government. So, I suppose it should be no surprise we are not seeing more or less credible rumours emerging from CIC or the offices of the Members of Parliament. But I am at least a little surprised. There are many, many people sitting on the edge of their chairs, fingertips hovering over the keyboard, ready to pound out the final draft of the application and submit it before the cut-off takes effect. Many of them are calling the CIC call centre, some repeatedly. Many are calling Members of Parliament (which I suspect will be the more likely source of a credible rumour, if and when there are credible rumours, and of course it will be near impossible to discern the credibility any such source if and when it is reported in forums like this). And time is running out. The clock is approaching the final hour.

For many following this (including me), we have no-skin-in-the-game, as they say, or no-dog-in-the-hunt. But there are some who do indeed have a genuine, substantial interest in what the date will be. Even someone who is in no big rush to apply, but who might be contemplating a two week trip abroad in May, but that two weeks might make the difference in applying this summer or having to wait until more than a year later, should be allowed the information that would enable him or her to make a reasonable decision as to whether or not to postpone the trip, which if it is for a business purpose could result in a substantial detriment but worth it if it means avoiding having to wait an extra year for citizenship.

For those who do have some skin-in-the-game, I am not confident that calls to your MP's office will actually result in getting real news. But it might be worth trying. Those who do might make a specific request supported by a brief, succinct explanation of why, such as trying to make travel plans in the next coming months, or trying to decide priorities relative to whether or not to spend time with an aging and ill parent abroad, trying to decide whether or not to pursue this or that employment opportunity for which citizenship is important . . . whatever is truly the case (and, please, no scam calls please, no bogus stories just to get information -- I absolutely do not condone, let alone want to encourage making excess demands or calls on either the CIC call centre or our MP's offices, they have real work to do for scores and scores of people in real need, and limited resources, so please do not abuse the privilege of what access we do have).

The response will most likely be either the date is still unknown, uncertain, or "approximately" a year from the date the SCCA was given Royal Assent (last June 19th). But for those for whom it really makes a difference, those for whom it can affect plans in the coming months for example, those who are really in the hunt for career opportunities which are dependent on having a Canadian passport (but career opportunities in Canada nonetheless), it may be worth the effort to make the call and find out what, if anything, the MP's office knows and is willing to share.

 

[dpenabill]

Other official government resources which are worth following and which provide direct information about the Citizenship Act and changes being made, include the Parliament of Canada website, and the Citizenship Act as consolidated at the Justice Laws Website (the links to related provisions and "amendments not in force" are particularly useful).

There are some further, recent amendments affecting the Citizenship Act which are largely, if not entirely, technical corrections to the SCCA, which were included in Bill C-44, An Act to amend the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act and other Acts, which specifically includes amendments to the SCCA section 31 (transitional provisions governing, in particular, which provisions will control processing of applications after section 5(1) amendments come into force), and SCCA section 46(2) which specifically governs the coming into force of the SCCA provisions including those amending section 5(1) of the Citizenship Act (the requirements for grant citizenship). I do not discern any substantive changes directly related to the residency provisions, as these appear to be housekeeping corrections.

Bill C-44 just went to Third Reading in the Senate, and has not yet received Royal Assent. It passed the House of Commons back in February. (In contrast, Bill C-24 passed the Commons June 16, had the Third Reading in the Senate June 19 and received Royal Assent the same day, a rather accelerated schedule one might note).

The reason for taking note of the revisions to section 31 and 46 of the SCCA is that these were probably required corrections needed to clear the path for the Governor in Council to make the order specifying the date for the respective provisions to come into force. That is, check off another housekeeping chore as done.

 

[na123]

Thanks dpenabill for great insight and information. I just have a gut feeling that the law will be published on the Gazette part 2 issue of Wednesday May 27th and become effective on Monday June 1st.

Almost all other coming into effect parts came on the first day of the month, and May 1st just seems very early.