Hi,
Today my wife and I finally became a citizen....yay!
My Oath Ceremony was in Calgary and was scheduled for 1:30pm. We turned up at 12:50pm and were almost last in a long line into the citizenship rooms. As we waited a lady came round and took our signed form giving media consent. A man behind me had the wrong paperwork on him (he had taken the test acknowledgement not the oath letter). The lady laughed and said he couldn't become Canadian and then said she was joking and it was not a problem. We all laughed.
We made it to the interviewing officer at 1:20pm and only 6 people were behind us. He asked us for our Permanent Residents card, which we handed over. He didn't ask to see anything else. We had taken our passports and ID and IMM form (when we became landed) and he didn't even take it out of the passport. We had to sign another form stating we had no criminal record since the test and then he handed us the O Canada words and a booklet about Canada and a flag and we moved to the Oath room.
We went into the Oath room and there were no seats left. Sadly there were so many family members who weren't getting sworn in sitting down we had to stand at the back of the room with about 15 others. I personally feel that anyone getting their Citizenship should be offered the chairs first, but hey ho.
The judge came in at exactly 1:30pm. He talked for 10 minutes about what it meant to become a Canadian and then we had to all repeat after him the Oath and swear allegiance to the Queen. After he called everyone up by name to shake his hand and receive their Citizenship Certificate. This took the longest as there were 100 people receiving it (he told us). This took 20 minutes. He then told us we had become Canadian and we all cheered.
Then he talked for another 10 minutes about what we can do now and how important it is to be involved in the community, volunteer and paid thanks to the military.
We then all sang O Canada and that was it, he closed out saying congratulations and then left at 2:15pm. It took 45 minutes.
We then had opportunity afterwards to have pictures taken with the judge in front of all the provincial flags and then we were done. Canadian at long last.
Good luck everyone on your journey.
Today my wife and I finally became a citizen....yay!
My Oath Ceremony was in Calgary and was scheduled for 1:30pm. We turned up at 12:50pm and were almost last in a long line into the citizenship rooms. As we waited a lady came round and took our signed form giving media consent. A man behind me had the wrong paperwork on him (he had taken the test acknowledgement not the oath letter). The lady laughed and said he couldn't become Canadian and then said she was joking and it was not a problem. We all laughed.
We made it to the interviewing officer at 1:20pm and only 6 people were behind us. He asked us for our Permanent Residents card, which we handed over. He didn't ask to see anything else. We had taken our passports and ID and IMM form (when we became landed) and he didn't even take it out of the passport. We had to sign another form stating we had no criminal record since the test and then he handed us the O Canada words and a booklet about Canada and a flag and we moved to the Oath room.
We went into the Oath room and there were no seats left. Sadly there were so many family members who weren't getting sworn in sitting down we had to stand at the back of the room with about 15 others. I personally feel that anyone getting their Citizenship should be offered the chairs first, but hey ho.
The judge came in at exactly 1:30pm. He talked for 10 minutes about what it meant to become a Canadian and then we had to all repeat after him the Oath and swear allegiance to the Queen. After he called everyone up by name to shake his hand and receive their Citizenship Certificate. This took the longest as there were 100 people receiving it (he told us). This took 20 minutes. He then told us we had become Canadian and we all cheered.
Then he talked for another 10 minutes about what we can do now and how important it is to be involved in the community, volunteer and paid thanks to the military.
We then all sang O Canada and that was it, he closed out saying congratulations and then left at 2:15pm. It took 45 minutes.
We then had opportunity afterwards to have pictures taken with the judge in front of all the provincial flags and then we were done. Canadian at long last.
Good luck everyone on your journey.