Is this how slow applications are being processed?

[victor58]

On the website which I am sure most of you have seen when checking your status, it says the below. They have been processing applications for that week for close to a month now and it seems like it only moves to another week in 4-6 weeks.

Does that mean for someone who applied in October 2019, their application will take close to 2 more years to finalize?

Becoming a Canadian citizen (grant of citizenship)
Last updated: August 24, 2021
We’re still accepting new applications for citizenship.
We’re currently finalizing most applications we received between
May 26 and June 1, 2019 ?
If your application is complex, it may take us longer to process it.

 

[rajkamalmohanram]

On the website which I am sure most of you have seen when checking your status, it says the below. They have been processing applications for that week for close to a month now and it seems like it only moves to another week in 4-6 weeks.

Does that mean for someone who applied in October 2019, their application will take close to 2 more years to finalize?

Becoming a Canadian citizen (grant of citizenship)
Last updated: August 24, 2021
We’re still accepting new applications for citizenship.
We’re currently finalizing most applications we received between
May 26 and June 1, 2019 ?
If your application is complex, it may take us longer to process it.

While that date is shown on the IRCC website, there are several 2019 and 2020 applicants being processed (receiving test invites, "Decision Made" statuses and being scheduled for oath) and these applicants don't fall within that window. I'm not really sure what the dates in that window reflect since clearly (as you can see from the spreadsheet), there are applicants that are outside that window seeing progress / oath dates on their application.

2019 Spreadsheet => https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1V2kMI1QtzlMj8k4shG0IBLnS8GqOhoJDkem5HloNe0I/

2020 Spreadsheet => https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1U27V95kWlCVYWB0zye7DvqoXSkyqxgbA31eEJ_TKO6Y/

 

[victor58]

On August 30, they were finalizing applications between May 26 and June 1, 2019

2.5 months later, they are finalizing applications between August 18 and August 24, 2019 which is also 2.5 months away from May 26 to June 1, 2019....

So it does seem like they are processing applications on a weekly basis now which seems to be a positive? Does that means that for most applicants that applied in 2019, their applications should be processed within the next 4-5 months? I am wondering if there is some light at the end of the tunnel

 

[CaBeaver]

On August 30, they were finalizing applications between May 26 and June 1, 2019

2.5 months later, they are finalizing applications between August 18 and August 24, 2019 which is also 2.5 months away from May 26 to June 1, 2019....

So it does seem like they are processing applications on a weekly basis now which seems to be a positive? Does that means that for most applicants that applied in 2019, their applications should be processed within the next 4-5 months? I am wondering if there is some light at the end of the tunnel

I would think so.

 

[justanotherguy28]

On August 30, they were finalizing applications between May 26 and June 1, 2019

2.5 months later, they are finalizing applications between August 18 and August 24, 2019 which is also 2.5 months away from May 26 to June 1, 2019....

So it does seem like they are processing applications on a weekly basis now which seems to be a positive? Does that means that for most applicants that applied in 2019, their applications should be processed within the next 4-5 months? I am wondering if there is some light at the end of the tunnel

Not sure if this update means every application filed before August 18, 2019 was adjudicated. There's always been a huge discrepancy between their generic updates and individual experiences. Unless they resolve this problem at a very central level - which needs to come from the senior leadership of IRCC - this processing is likely to suffer from all kinds of unintended biases like applicant location, (seemingly) individual officer's interest etc. Strategic initiatives like workload sharing between offices, continuous reordering of both new and pending applications to enforce first come, first served etc will only solve this issue. It seems like they're spending a lot of their energy defending themselves and not really looking inwards.

$630 should be more than enough to process an application but if resources are the problem. they need to separate applications by category and ask for more allocation from the government for applications that are costly to process, for example, those related to the Afghan crisis.

Didn't mean to be a debbie downer but even if they genuinely want to clear the backlog asap (which I think many in IRCC do) it's going to be chaotic. Even beyond 2019, I don't know how they're ever going to clear the 2020 backlog. It's also difficult to explain why a small number of offices in GTA appear to be (anecdotally - based on the spreadsheet) a bit faster on average than most other offices in the country. Without any real data, we can only speculate.

Given the number of folks waiting just for the oath, I don't know why they wouldn't get a large meeting license from Zoom, borrow clerks from different offices and send out mass invites. It doesn't get any more scalable + cost effective than an online oath. Without a fresh perspective and creativity, it's likely going to be as subjective as ever for the foreseeable time.

One notable thing is some 2019 folks are getting updates, iirc I saw at least 3 cases within the last month or so, where they completed oath just days short of the 2 year mark. Not sure if that's something, hopefully it is.

 

[CaBeaver]

Not sure if this update means every application filed before August 18, 2019 was adjudicated. There's always been a huge discrepancy between their generic updates and individual experiences. Unless they resolve this problem at a very central level - which needs to come from the senior leadership of IRCC - this processing is likely to suffer from all kinds of unintended biases like applicant location, (seemingly) individual officer's interest etc. Strategic initiatives like workload sharing between offices, continuous reordering of both new and pending applications to enforce first come, first served etc will only solve this issue. It seems like they're spending a lot of their energy defending themselves and not really looking inwards.

$630 should be more than enough to process an application but if resources are the problem. they need to separate applications by category and ask for more allocation from the government for applications that are costly to process, for example, those related to the Afghan crisis.

Didn't mean to be a debbie downer but even if they genuinely want to clear the backlog asap (which I think many in IRCC do) it's going to be chaotic. Even beyond 2019, I don't know how they're ever going to clear the 2020 backlog. It's also difficult to explain why a small number of offices in GTA appear to be (anecdotally - based on the spreadsheet) a bit faster on average than most other offices in the country. Without any real data, we can only speculate.

Given the number of folks waiting just for the oath, I don't know why they wouldn't get a large meeting license from Zoom, borrow clerks from different offices and send out mass invites. It doesn't get any more scalable + cost effective than an online oath. Without a fresh perspective and creativity, it's likely going to be as subjective as ever for the foreseeable time.

One notable thing is some 2019 folks are getting updates, iirc I saw at least 3 cases within the last month or so, where they completed oath just days short of the 2 year mark. Not sure if that's something, hopefully it is.

One thing is for sure: IRCC doesn't care about clearing the backlog. The incentives are nonexistent. The problems you mentioned should be their priority, but what they focus on is processing applications in 12 months. I don't know why. There is a backlog. So, they should not commit to process applications in 12 months. Stretch the expected processing time to 18 months. This way they can work more on old applications. I think 18 months is a reasonable time for new applicants to wait, given that we old applicants waited 24+ months. They shouldn't compensate their bad performance of the 2019-2020 fiscal year with new applications at the expense of old applications. But they don't care about this. They want to show they are "committed" to process applications in 12 months. They just care about their image and reputation.

 

[armoured]

I do not follow citizenship timelines closely but I believe the "we are finalizing apps from [dates]" is the formulation IRCC uses in other programs, and means (roughly) that ~80% of applications received during that period are/have been finalized.

Meaning a bit less than 80% of apps received during that period have been processed more quickly - and apps received before that have a better than 80% completion rate.

The 12-month or 18-month or whatever announced time period is geared to that - and I think the simple answer is that they haven't updated their timelines.