Fighting Bill-C24 by petition Q&A : are we winning yet?

[sashali78]

Friends and Supporters,
As we reached over 6000 signatures on the petition (link below), I wanted to give you an interim report on how we are doing so far on our activities:
1. We have contacted over 50 MP's and sent them our message and documents through email, fax and regular mail.
2. We have conducted 15 meetings with conservative, NDP and liberal MPs across Canada. We have met a great support among those MPs who were ready to meet with us and several had agreed to table our petition (the legal version of it) at the parliament. Few more meetings have been scheduled and will be conducted soon.
3. We are working with immigration committee members and were invited as a group to be witnesses/experts in front of the committee when the Bill is going to be debated. This is very important achievement as committee is the one responsible for any future Bill amendments. Due to all of the above,
4. We had several press releases, in Toronto Star, Kingston Tv and Vancouver press. We are working on getting more.

What YOU can do to help us?
1. Sign the petition: https://www.change.org/en-CA/petitions/parliament-of-canada-do-not-allow-unfair-treatment-of-former-foreign-workers-and-international-students-by-new-canadian-citizenship-bill-c-24
2. Promote it on your Facebook/Twitter page. Send it to all your friends.
3. Contact your local communities/newspapers/magazines - send us an email at FightTheBillC24 @ outlook.com and I will provide all needed templates/documents.
4. Contact your MP - contact me at FightTheBillC24 @ outlook.com and I will you with all needed docs and support

 

[samroc]

Thanks for all your hard work.

 

[sashali78]

Thanks for all your hard work.

My pleasure. Thanks for the support.

 

[Hpanjola69]

Can you please explain, what this about this bill is?

 

[taleodor]

Hi Hpanjola69,

We are talking about the changes to the Citizenship Act. The Conservative Government wants to eliminate the count of pre-PR time towards the citizenship requirement. At the same time, they are raising PR-time requirement to at least 4 years. The implication is that thousands of immigrants who were former international students or foreign workers will have to wait 3+ more years before even applying for Citizenship. This is not to mention that the Citizenship backlog now amounts to at least 2-3 years of processing time. I.e., we are talking about 5-6+ years of extra waiting time. And all these new 'rules' target people who live for 5-6 (sometimes 10-15) years in Canada.

You can find verbose explanation of most of the issues on our petition page:
https://www.change.org/en-CA/petitions/parliament-of-canada-do-not-allow-unfair-treatment-of-former-foreign-workers-and-international-students-by-new-canadian-citizenship-bill-c-24

Also, here are couple of links with media coverage:
http://www.thestar.com/news/immigration/2014/03/03/canadian_newcomers_dread_changes_to_citizenship_rules.html

http://www.ckwstv.com/2014/03/10/petition-against-bill-c-24/

 

[sashali78]

Hi Hpanjola69,

We are talking about the changes to the Citizenship Act. The Conservative Government wants to eliminate the count of pre-PR time towards the citizenship requirement. At the same time, they are raising PR-time requirement to at least 4 years. The implication is that thousands of immigrants who were former international students or foreign workers will have to wait 3+ more years before even applying for Citizenship. This is not to mention that the Citizenship backlog now amounts to at least 2-3 years of processing time. I.e., we are talking about 5-6+ years of extra waiting time. And all these new 'rules' target people who live for 5-6 (sometimes 10-15) years in Canada.

You can find verbose explanation of most of the issues on our petition page:
https://www.change.org/en-CA/petitions/parliament-of-canada-do-not-allow-unfair-treatment-of-former-foreign-workers-and-international-students-by-new-canadian-citizenship-bill-c-24

Also, here are couple of links with media coverage:
http://www.thestar.com/news/immigration/2014/03/03/canadian_newcomers_dread_changes_to_citizenship_rules.html

http://www.ckwstv.com/2014/03/10/petition-against-bill-c-24/

Thanks Taleodor