WHY this MATTERS:
There is no news or recent event which warrants giving
false hope to those who will not be eligible before August.
There is no news or recent events which would warrant those
on-the-cusp to delay preparing to make their application soon, as soon as practical and they are qualified, in anticipation that there is no rush
IF their priority is to apply soon, soon enough to beat the cut-off.
We know no more today than we knew a month or more ago: this is coming, coming soon, most likely date is still (as it has been for a long time) in June or July, most likely on or before August 1st at the latest, but it could also be
any day now, any day!
For those
on-the-cusp between now and through July, if they are anxious to get their applications made before the change takes effect, they should prepare to apply in advance and stay prepared, and in the meantime watch for news. For many in this group, even a brief trip abroad could delay their qualification date and preclude being eligible to apply this year. So they should make plans accordingly, based on their personal priorities.
For those who will not be qualified under the current law prior to August, however, there is no reason to re-arrange life in hopes the changes will be significantly delayed and not take effect until late in August or even later. There is a possibility the implementation could be delayed that long or longer. But a possibility does not equal a probability. There is
nothing that has happened or come out which would lead a reasonable person to think it will be delayed that long.
So, for example, while a two week trip abroad could, of course, make a difference, for those who will not be qualified to apply before August there is no cause to cancel travel plans or otherwise re-arrange one's affairs so as to become qualified sooner in hopes of being able to apply this year rather than having to wait another full year to be qualified under the 4/6 rule. Sure, watch the news, and if this slides into July with no formal notice of the date out yet, those who could apply in August might want to get prepared and may
then consider cancelling travel plans or such if applying sooner is a priority. But for now, anyone not already on track to be qualified before August should not be given false hope, particularly not that would encourage re-arranging their affairs just for a chance to apply in August. Not likely to happen.
MUFC said:
In the new applications there will be placed a sector where the applicant has to give his SIN.
CIC can't request such information before proposed regulations governing information sharing come into force.
They can request such personal information only after the proposed regulations governing information sharing come into force.
It is most likely that the Governor in Council's order fixing the date for the
Act's provisions coming into force, and the registration of the amended regulations, will be coordinated, to happen concurrently. In terms of legal requisites there is nothing which precludes that from happening tomorrow. So this is no indication of when either or both will happen. Could be tomorrow or July 17 or any day in-between.
That said, again, the amended regulation for information sharing can
NOT come into force before the date the Governor in Council fixes as the date section 4(3) of the
SCCA comes into force. The regulation will
NOT be in force, cannot be in force, before the revised grant citizenship requirements come into force.
As to practical requisites:
MUFC said:
Meanwhile there is IT implementation which has to happen between the institutions which involves training of the staff which is in addition to the regular processing training.
As to practical requisites, including IT, training, and revising forms, which also includes revising applications and guides and . . . yes, there is a whole lot to have done before the actual implementation of the revised law. There is no hint this is not on track in this government, no hint that all this preparatory work is not getting done on schedule.
No hint is this government's
modus operandi.
This has been in the works, in progress, since at least the very beginning of 2014. Not sure why anyone would get the impression this is not on track for whatever date Harper has decided on, probably decided on many months ago.
In this respect, as a reminder, note that in retrospect it could be seen that in early 2014 (at the latest and long before Bill C-24 even had its second reading) CIC began processing long-haul RQs toward resolution employing the decision-making authority the
SCCA transferred to the Minister and which did not come into force until last August 1st. CIC did not overtly publicize this (beyond its Bill C-24 related announcements regarding the much touted "one-step" decision-making process being implemented), but by the time the respective provisions of the
SCCA came into force last August, and a large number of long-haul RQ'd applicants were subsequently scheduled for the oath last fall, the extent of the long-term preparatory processing became obvious.
Preparations for the revised grant requirements likewise have been in progress for just as long. There is no reason to suspect this is behind schedule.
MUFC said:
There are only 4 gazettes Part II before July 1st.
That is the number of scheduled
Regular Editions of Part II.
Extra Editions also can be published, which are not the least unusual. Extra Editions may be published any day except Sunday or the day a Regular Edition is published.
But why that might be a significant timeline indicator escapes me. The very next Regular Edition could publish the registered versions of the amended regulations. Moreover, the publication of registered regulations can take place
weeks after the regulations are registered. Thus, for example, the information sharing regulations could already be registered but we not see them published until the next Regular Edition of the Gazette Part II is published. Or they could be registered any day now, and again it could be weeks after that before we see them published as such in the Gazette.
Similarly relative to publishing the Governor in Council's order fixing the date for when the statutory provisions will come into force. These orders do not typically appear in the Gazette until a
week or more later, which is why those watching for news of the Governor in Council's order are watching other sources, like the Parliament's web site, CIC web site, and unofficial sources like web sites for various stakeholders (such as the Consultants' web site linked previously) who might have access to such information in advance of formal publicizing.
MUFC said:
I also expect that when the New Citizenship Act is published in Part II of the Gazette it will not be enforced right away.
Most probably we will se again that the date will come out when the Governor decide to do so.
Clarifications: The revised
Citizenship Act will NOT be published in Part II of the Gazette. Part II of the Gazette is for the publication of
Official Regulations (albeit this includes publication of the official
registration of certain government acts, regulations most notably but also orders by the Governor in Council).
The
SCCA was already published in the September 3, 2014 issue of
Part III of the Gazette, Part III being where Acts of Parliament are published. I find the version published at the Parliament's web site easier to access and navigate. For format separating current version of the
Citizenship Act including now-in-force provisions which were adopted as part of the
SCCA, see
the Act as set out in the Justice Laws web site, and see the
Amendments Not in Force as set out there as well.
The Order fixing the date the revised grant citizenship provisions in the
SCCA come into force will be published in Part II. This order will be made by the Governor in Council. Example of such an order is found in the August 13, 2014 Regular Edition,
the order fixing August 1, 2014 as the day on which subsection 7(3), section 11, subsections 12(1) and (3), section 13, subsection 16(2) and sections 20, 22, 27 and 41 of the
SCCA came into force. As oft noted, the order itself was made July 31, 2014, the coming into force date fixed was the very next day, August 1, 2014, and the registration of the order was not published until August 13, 2014.
Thus, relative to the Governor's order being published in the Gazette, the revised provisions governing the grant of citizenship (4/6 rule for example) may be in force and enforced
BEFORE the order is published in the Gazette.
Again, this is why those watching for news are watching sources more likely to contemporaneously publicize the order once it is issued. The Parliament web site, for example, appears to be updated twice weekly and would, I presume, be promptly updated with any coming into force orders.
Obviously I do not know the reliability of reports like that posted by
jassi_cool1980:
jassi_cool1980 said:
i met with a senior official of citizenship and immigration department today, two things he told me
1. they gonna implement the law pretty soon
2. and nobody knows the exact date , not even him . only people at very highest level know the date , which according to him still hasn't been finalized.
. . . but both these numbered propositions are well within the range of reasonable expectations and actually, my sense, are very likely true . . . subject to what is meant by the date not being "finalized" yet. My opinion is that the date is certain, known only to a very few, but it is not "finalized" of course until the Governor in Council formally fixes the date by Order.
"Pretty soon" would cover any day between now and mid-July. And that is pretty much what we already apprehended. And this is indeed the most likely range.
By the way, I do not doubt that July 1st is the most likely date all this will happen. A large part of my stubbornly clinging to the June 1st bet is about staying aware that this could easily happen before July 1st.
As to the actual date we are still just speculating. Overall, though, again, with much emphasis, there has been nothing which has happened, no news, which suggests the actual implementation date is not right on track for whatever date Harper decided on way back when.
shaazdeh said:
In government, there is always a deadline for works but majority of projects past due. Do they have a deadline? Yes, they know the date but they always ask for extension if it does not go as plan. Sometimes projects are put on hold for variety of reason for certain period of time. People who thinks senior officials would share this information with them, just simply don't know how government works. Or those that they think their MP, or lawyer would know. There are certain information will not be shared in public and people work in government swears and sign papers that won't share those info.
All this is generally correct in my view as well.
The possibility of delays (which I discuss in previous posts), however, should not be inferred to indicate there will be a delay. This government does not suffer delay easily and tends to not delay even when that means encountering serious problems.
For an example of this government's
full-speed-head-and-damn-the-torpedoes approach, one need only look to the rollout of OB 407 in April 2012, a totally top down major revision of citizenship application processing, dumped on local offices with minimal advance notice, minimal guidelines and virtually no training, implemented without a coherent transitional plan (the transitional plan was to have the local offices re-screen all applications not already at the test stage, which was a disaster, which for example resulted in housewives being issued RQ simply because they were housewives), resulting in nearly shutting down the grant citizenship application process for close to a year (I believe that there were more new citizens in 2014 than in all of 2012 and 2013 combined . . . at the least, the number in 2014 doubled that for 2012.)
