Today's Regular Edition of Part II in the Gazette does not contain the Order by the Governor in Council fixing May 29, 2015 as the date key provisions in the SCCA come into force.
So far the only source stating there is such an Order is CIC, in its news release last Friday, and in CIC's Program Delivery Instructions. Neither of these is an official source. Nonetheless there is no reason to doubt the accuracy of CIC's online information, thus we can expect that the Governor in Council has made such an Order.
I looked back at all the Orders of this sort (fixing the date statutory provisions are to come into force) for the past several months, and the longest gap between the date of the Order and the date of publication in the Gazette has been three weeks on two occasions (for example, there is one in today's Part II which was made May 14, fixing May 15th as the date the Rouge National Urban Park Act comes into force, publication just today June 3).
Thus, this most recent Order by the Governor in Council regarding effective dates for Bill C-24 may not be published until the June 17th Part II Regular Edition of the Gazette.
Given the meticulous manner in which this government manages these matters, typically orchestrating even minute details to control all aspects of its more important actions, my strong sense is the timing is very much deliberate, deliberately timing the Order so that its content is not publicized for as long as possible. My sense is that the purpose of this was to reduce the lead time between disclosure of the precise date the revised grant citizenship requirements will become effective and the date they do become effective. That is, to give the public a minimal amount of advance notice before the 4/6 rule comes into force.
This in turn leads me to be more inclined still that this Order by the Governor in Council, which was probably made May 28 or May 27, is likely to have also fixed the dates for other provisions of the SCCA to come into force . . . which is to say I think that it may very well have fixed the date for the 4/6 rule to take effect.
While still in the nature of speculating, unless there is (as a number of rumours are suggesting) something causing the government to delay the implementation of the revised requirements (4/6 et al rules), all this seems to be pointing at either June 19th or July 1st as the most likely date the 4/6 et al rules will take effect.
If this is what is happening, the rumour mill should begin buzzing more frenetically than ever soon. If the most recent Order by the Governor in Council, regarding the SCCA, addresses the date the 4/6 et al rules will take effect, the number of people who know the date has to have increased dramatically, and thus the likelihood of leaks has increased.
Otherwise, unless the Order pops up in the Privy Council database sooner, it appears we should know more June 17 when the next Regular Edition of the Gazette is published . . . although, CIC may also publicize the information sooner as well (as it has the coming into force date for Section 8 of the SCCA).
Effective public notice as of June 17 probably works, for this government's purposes, for either a June 19 or July 1 effective date. This is what leads me to think there is a stronger than ever indication one or the other of these is the likely day. I suppose that July 1st remains the odds-makers' favourite (but certainly not the favourite for the thousands who would be able to apply in July if the effective date is delay to later).
