Hey folks (or shall I say fellow travellers?)!
I have been a regular on this forum for 6 years now (since when I applied for PR from the US in the early days of Express Entry in 2015), and I can't thank all of you enough for the useful insights you have share here. However, I don't post much - in fact I barely posted anything up until recently. So I decided to share with you my experience now that it is behind me (to say that I'm relieved will be an understatement, of course) as a way of thanking you. Here is the TL;DR version - I had my oath ceremony on Wednesday, Dec. 1st between 9-11 am, and I had my (fresh off-the-press!) Canadian passport in my hands at approx. 3.30 pm on Friday, Dec. 3rd. Read on to find out how!
First, some background. I applied in Jan. 2020 (app. received by IRCC on Jan. 22, 2020), and received AOR on Mar. 13. I don't have to remind you what happened a few days later (read: COVID-19 literally brought the world, including IRCC, to a grinding halt). IIRC I received an update on Sep. 20 stating IRCC started working on my application (aka status = in-progress). TBH, by end of 2020, I didn't have much hope left on this process coming to an end anytime soon. I had to move to Europe (let'd not get into the details of which country) in January 2021 for a new job. Coincidentally, by the time I moved, it had been 12 months (the ETA given on IRCC's website for citizenship applications) when I moved.
When moving, I had mentally prepared myself of the possibility of me having to travel to Canada (on really short notice) to take the citizenship test, and eventually for the oath ceremony. I kept reading stories of how folks had to ask to reschedule their test, travel on a day's notice, etc., and I figured I'd be one of those when the time came. Anyway, the time did come - in late-June - when I received a notice to take the test within 21 days. I was not vaccinated at this point, and was apprehensive of international travel (having gone through it already in January, and believe me when I say it is not pleasant). So I immediately wrote back to IRCC (on the same email address from which I'd received the notice) explaining my situation, and asking them to reschedule my test, if possible, to mid-August or later since I expected to be vaccinated by then. To my (pleasant) surprise, they wrote back the next day advising me to take the test from outside Canada, and to select "Yes" in response to the question that asked whether I was physically present in Canada, though they acknowledged I was located outside Canada (they also said they'd be rolling out software changes to rectify this shortly). I gathered from reading posts on this forum that it was right around that time that they had made this policy change, and I may even have been among one of the first ones to benefit from this change. Lady luck! Anyhow, I took the test sometime in mid-July (~2.5 weeks after getting the invite). I spent a good 6-8 hours studying the book, and taking practice tests, and got 20/20 on the test (the only time you'll hear me brag through this whole post!). The test status turned complete in <2 days, and back to "in progress" a few days later for which I wrote IRCC only to never hear back from them on it.
After the test, I braced myself for a long period of radio silence. The only problem was my PR card was expiring in mid-October. So I wrote IRCC again with a plea for help, but received the standard fare response after waiting for ~5 days. Fast forward to the US Thanksgiving Day (yes, we celebrate the Canadian and the US Thanksgiving days while living in a third country!), and I saw my inbox light up with an invite to appear for oath on Dec 1st. I was happy and excited, but more so anxious as to how I was going to manage the logistics, including dealing with the fact that my PR card had already expired. My plan? Fly to Seattle, and drive up to Vancouver where I lived before moving (Surrey was handling my case), since the only way to get in with an expired PR card was via the land border (I still met my RO). One negative Covid test, and 2 international flights later, I found myself in Seattle on the afternoon of Nov. 30th driving north on I-5 to Vancouver, BC. I crossed the Pacific Hwy Border, and despite being in the Nexus lane, the system must have flagged that something was off with my PR card. I told the officer it had expired, and that I was going back to take the oath of citizenship (among other questions that I answered). He nicely asked me to park my car, and go inside the office building. The officer inside was equally nice, and after inquiring the details, and checking my paperwork (including the inivite for oath ceremony, my CoPR, etc.), he told me "Please have a seat while I verify everything in the system, and I'll have you on your way out shortly." True to his words, 10 mins later, he asked me to come over, gave me the documents back, wished me good luck for the ceremony, and asked me "I hope its all worth the trouble, right?" to which I obviously said yes (and meant it too!). BTW, he was also confused as to why IRCC won't just let me take the oath from Europe (the ceremony was going to be on Zoom anyway). My response? I don't fully understand or agree, but I respect their decision! And I was on my way to my hotel where I'd take the oath of citizenship (over Zoom) next morning.
Some horrible internet connectivity at the hotel, yelling at the front desk, and last minute scramble to switch rooms later, I finally went through the ceremony (with a few internet-driven interruptions on my end) almost entirely missing the recital of oath in French (I was lucky I did not miss the English one, or I'd have had to be rescheduled for who knows when! and in which case I'd have not been particularly kind to the hotel management). I'll spare you the details of the ceremony, a lot of people have posted about it, and my experience pretty much tracks with the general feedback on the experience i.e. seminal moment, hard to keep your emotions to yourself, cutting your PR card into pieces, etc. Before the official oath proceedings, the clerk asked me if I had any plans to travel within next 2 weeks, and I told her I had tickets to fly back to Erurope for Sunday (Dec 5th) morning so I could get back to my job on Monday. She said I can come pick up the citizenship certificate from the Surrey office on Friday between 12-3 pm, and reminded me to send the proof of itinerary (along with receipt of paid tickets), and documentary evidence showing the travel was for a legitimate reason, and not just for leisure, when sending the signed oath letter. I obliged, and did as instructed.
Now that I had the certificate situation under control, I got to work on the next thing on my list - the Canadian passport. I started calling the 1800 number with no luck at first. I would get tossed around from one person to another, then wait for ~10-15 mins, and then again. I did this a few times, and after spending ~3 hours (including once waiting for 55 mins to hear from a human again), I gave up for the day. I also filled out the online form on the passport agency's website asking someone to call me (their ETA, as you might already know, is 48 hours). The next day (i.e. Thursday), I started calling again, and I believe on the second attempt I finally got hold of someone who said they could help me. I explained my situation to which she said, "it is going to be tight, and I'm not making any promises whatsoever, but we'll try our best to help you". She asked when was the earliest I could get my citizenship certificate, and I told her 12 pm on Friday (Dec. 3), so she booked me an appointment for 12.30 pm on Friday at the Surrey Passport Office (which luckily is only only 3-4 mins. drive from the IRCC office). I thanked her, and made sure I had the forms filled and everything else ready ahead of time.
Come Dec. 3, I got to the IRCC office by 12.10 pm (took me a while to find the office after parking), left as soon as I was done receiving the citizenship certificate at around 12.30 pm. I arrived at the passport office around 12.40 pm, and the gentleman at one of the counters walked me through the process, including how they'll call the guarantor and 2 references within the next hour since this is an urgent processing request. I had my guarantor on stand by outside the passport office, and asked the officer if he was okay to physically verify the gurantor in person instead of calling them. He agreed, so all that was left was verifying the 2 references. He submitted my application, and asked me to be back by 3.30 pm to collect my passport (the office closes at 4 pm only to open back up on Monday morning, so this was critical information). As soon as I stepped out of the passport office, I texted and called my references to give them heads up that they'd be receiving a call shortly from the passport office. Unfortunately for me, one of the references fell through because their phone gave up that very morning. So I called my back up reference who agreed to receive a call from the passport office on such short notice. I went back inside the office, told them about what happened, and they made me fill out my new reference's details on a form, and the reference received a call shortly after to confirm. Thus, all the references were confirmed.
I showed up at 3.30 pm as instructed, and they handed me my new Canadian passport! As stressful and tiring the (2-year long) journey might have been to get to that point, I was thankful to Canada as a nation, and proud to call it my new home! I'll be back someday soon, and never again have to worry about applying to another immigration/visa related document so long as I live in Canada.
Good luck to all those who are still waiting (some perhaps for longer than I have). All I can say is - don't lose hope, it will definitely be worth it!
I have been a regular on this forum for 6 years now (since when I applied for PR from the US in the early days of Express Entry in 2015), and I can't thank all of you enough for the useful insights you have share here. However, I don't post much - in fact I barely posted anything up until recently. So I decided to share with you my experience now that it is behind me (to say that I'm relieved will be an understatement, of course) as a way of thanking you. Here is the TL;DR version - I had my oath ceremony on Wednesday, Dec. 1st between 9-11 am, and I had my (fresh off-the-press!) Canadian passport in my hands at approx. 3.30 pm on Friday, Dec. 3rd. Read on to find out how!
First, some background. I applied in Jan. 2020 (app. received by IRCC on Jan. 22, 2020), and received AOR on Mar. 13. I don't have to remind you what happened a few days later (read: COVID-19 literally brought the world, including IRCC, to a grinding halt). IIRC I received an update on Sep. 20 stating IRCC started working on my application (aka status = in-progress). TBH, by end of 2020, I didn't have much hope left on this process coming to an end anytime soon. I had to move to Europe (let'd not get into the details of which country) in January 2021 for a new job. Coincidentally, by the time I moved, it had been 12 months (the ETA given on IRCC's website for citizenship applications) when I moved.
When moving, I had mentally prepared myself of the possibility of me having to travel to Canada (on really short notice) to take the citizenship test, and eventually for the oath ceremony. I kept reading stories of how folks had to ask to reschedule their test, travel on a day's notice, etc., and I figured I'd be one of those when the time came. Anyway, the time did come - in late-June - when I received a notice to take the test within 21 days. I was not vaccinated at this point, and was apprehensive of international travel (having gone through it already in January, and believe me when I say it is not pleasant). So I immediately wrote back to IRCC (on the same email address from which I'd received the notice) explaining my situation, and asking them to reschedule my test, if possible, to mid-August or later since I expected to be vaccinated by then. To my (pleasant) surprise, they wrote back the next day advising me to take the test from outside Canada, and to select "Yes" in response to the question that asked whether I was physically present in Canada, though they acknowledged I was located outside Canada (they also said they'd be rolling out software changes to rectify this shortly). I gathered from reading posts on this forum that it was right around that time that they had made this policy change, and I may even have been among one of the first ones to benefit from this change. Lady luck! Anyhow, I took the test sometime in mid-July (~2.5 weeks after getting the invite). I spent a good 6-8 hours studying the book, and taking practice tests, and got 20/20 on the test (the only time you'll hear me brag through this whole post!). The test status turned complete in <2 days, and back to "in progress" a few days later for which I wrote IRCC only to never hear back from them on it.
After the test, I braced myself for a long period of radio silence. The only problem was my PR card was expiring in mid-October. So I wrote IRCC again with a plea for help, but received the standard fare response after waiting for ~5 days. Fast forward to the US Thanksgiving Day (yes, we celebrate the Canadian and the US Thanksgiving days while living in a third country!), and I saw my inbox light up with an invite to appear for oath on Dec 1st. I was happy and excited, but more so anxious as to how I was going to manage the logistics, including dealing with the fact that my PR card had already expired. My plan? Fly to Seattle, and drive up to Vancouver where I lived before moving (Surrey was handling my case), since the only way to get in with an expired PR card was via the land border (I still met my RO). One negative Covid test, and 2 international flights later, I found myself in Seattle on the afternoon of Nov. 30th driving north on I-5 to Vancouver, BC. I crossed the Pacific Hwy Border, and despite being in the Nexus lane, the system must have flagged that something was off with my PR card. I told the officer it had expired, and that I was going back to take the oath of citizenship (among other questions that I answered). He nicely asked me to park my car, and go inside the office building. The officer inside was equally nice, and after inquiring the details, and checking my paperwork (including the inivite for oath ceremony, my CoPR, etc.), he told me "Please have a seat while I verify everything in the system, and I'll have you on your way out shortly." True to his words, 10 mins later, he asked me to come over, gave me the documents back, wished me good luck for the ceremony, and asked me "I hope its all worth the trouble, right?" to which I obviously said yes (and meant it too!). BTW, he was also confused as to why IRCC won't just let me take the oath from Europe (the ceremony was going to be on Zoom anyway). My response? I don't fully understand or agree, but I respect their decision! And I was on my way to my hotel where I'd take the oath of citizenship (over Zoom) next morning.
Some horrible internet connectivity at the hotel, yelling at the front desk, and last minute scramble to switch rooms later, I finally went through the ceremony (with a few internet-driven interruptions on my end) almost entirely missing the recital of oath in French (I was lucky I did not miss the English one, or I'd have had to be rescheduled for who knows when! and in which case I'd have not been particularly kind to the hotel management). I'll spare you the details of the ceremony, a lot of people have posted about it, and my experience pretty much tracks with the general feedback on the experience i.e. seminal moment, hard to keep your emotions to yourself, cutting your PR card into pieces, etc. Before the official oath proceedings, the clerk asked me if I had any plans to travel within next 2 weeks, and I told her I had tickets to fly back to Erurope for Sunday (Dec 5th) morning so I could get back to my job on Monday. She said I can come pick up the citizenship certificate from the Surrey office on Friday between 12-3 pm, and reminded me to send the proof of itinerary (along with receipt of paid tickets), and documentary evidence showing the travel was for a legitimate reason, and not just for leisure, when sending the signed oath letter. I obliged, and did as instructed.
Now that I had the certificate situation under control, I got to work on the next thing on my list - the Canadian passport. I started calling the 1800 number with no luck at first. I would get tossed around from one person to another, then wait for ~10-15 mins, and then again. I did this a few times, and after spending ~3 hours (including once waiting for 55 mins to hear from a human again), I gave up for the day. I also filled out the online form on the passport agency's website asking someone to call me (their ETA, as you might already know, is 48 hours). The next day (i.e. Thursday), I started calling again, and I believe on the second attempt I finally got hold of someone who said they could help me. I explained my situation to which she said, "it is going to be tight, and I'm not making any promises whatsoever, but we'll try our best to help you". She asked when was the earliest I could get my citizenship certificate, and I told her 12 pm on Friday (Dec. 3), so she booked me an appointment for 12.30 pm on Friday at the Surrey Passport Office (which luckily is only only 3-4 mins. drive from the IRCC office). I thanked her, and made sure I had the forms filled and everything else ready ahead of time.
Come Dec. 3, I got to the IRCC office by 12.10 pm (took me a while to find the office after parking), left as soon as I was done receiving the citizenship certificate at around 12.30 pm. I arrived at the passport office around 12.40 pm, and the gentleman at one of the counters walked me through the process, including how they'll call the guarantor and 2 references within the next hour since this is an urgent processing request. I had my guarantor on stand by outside the passport office, and asked the officer if he was okay to physically verify the gurantor in person instead of calling them. He agreed, so all that was left was verifying the 2 references. He submitted my application, and asked me to be back by 3.30 pm to collect my passport (the office closes at 4 pm only to open back up on Monday morning, so this was critical information). As soon as I stepped out of the passport office, I texted and called my references to give them heads up that they'd be receiving a call shortly from the passport office. Unfortunately for me, one of the references fell through because their phone gave up that very morning. So I called my back up reference who agreed to receive a call from the passport office on such short notice. I went back inside the office, told them about what happened, and they made me fill out my new reference's details on a form, and the reference received a call shortly after to confirm. Thus, all the references were confirmed.
I showed up at 3.30 pm as instructed, and they handed me my new Canadian passport! As stressful and tiring the (2-year long) journey might have been to get to that point, I was thankful to Canada as a nation, and proud to call it my new home! I'll be back someday soon, and never again have to worry about applying to another immigration/visa related document so long as I live in Canada.
Good luck to all those who are still waiting (some perhaps for longer than I have). All I can say is - don't lose hope, it will definitely be worth it!
