New Citizenship Bill Thursday Feb 6th
- Thread starter polarbear
- Start date
I wonder if this bill will become law when it receives royal assent or an earlier date prescribed in the bill?!
polarbear said:Alexander said the proposed changes to the Citizenship Act would also aim to reduce the current backlog of applications and change the conditions for eligibility.
So I think, this will also affect applications currently in process.
I think one way to reduce the backlog is to make the requirement 4 in 6 rather than 3 in 4 (years) for example. In that case they will automatically pause the citizenship applications by one year. My sister is suppose to apply next month, she will be so unhappy.
Citizenship Bill will take at least 2 months to become a law.... till then, they can't do much other than do some procedural changes, but they have been doing them for the past 8 months now. I really don't think that they will touch the applications currently in process....
Once the bill gets tabled, it will have to go through several readings at the house of commons and its committees, then it will follow the same process at the senate, and finally it will have to get royal assent ( this last step is a matter of weeks).
As for reducing the current backlog, that's what they are already doing by employing more clerks everywhere, there has been a huge progress in the last few months, I guess that now they will start doing their public relations about this and will probably attribute it to the new act, also, by changing the eligibility rules, naturally Sydney and the local offices will get much less new applications during a certain time, which will allow them to reduce the backlog significantly by taking care of all the applications that are currently getting processed.
Just by taking a quick peek at all the timelines on this forum, a lot of applicants declare applying after 1095 and 1200 days of residency in average, so the trend is CLEAR, most people apply as soon as they become eligible,changing the rules and probably changing the residency requierments will surely give CIC a few months to take the time and open the old and dusty files that have been sitting there for the past X years...
Once the bill gets tabled, it will have to go through several readings at the house of commons and its committees, then it will follow the same process at the senate, and finally it will have to get royal assent ( this last step is a matter of weeks).
As for reducing the current backlog, that's what they are already doing by employing more clerks everywhere, there has been a huge progress in the last few months, I guess that now they will start doing their public relations about this and will probably attribute it to the new act, also, by changing the eligibility rules, naturally Sydney and the local offices will get much less new applications during a certain time, which will allow them to reduce the backlog significantly by taking care of all the applications that are currently getting processed.
Just by taking a quick peek at all the timelines on this forum, a lot of applicants declare applying after 1095 and 1200 days of residency in average, so the trend is CLEAR, most people apply as soon as they become eligible,changing the rules and probably changing the residency requierments will surely give CIC a few months to take the time and open the old and dusty files that have been sitting there for the past X years...
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farrous13 said:
I don't really see anything groundbreaking in that bill... positive or negative. Well, except for the "Lost Canadian" part which is positive, but the comments are so vague that I'm not sure what real impact it will have.
ramsfe said:
Well said! Yes,this bill will apply to citizenship applications received on and after this legislatikn receives royal accent..Now,im just hoping that parts of this wont be implemented right on Thursday! Im right on the 1095. Day mark this friday and im mailing my application friday night. Yes,some legislation can be implemented into law on dates prescribed in those legislations and i sure hope that wont happen.Surely,some of the dates some pple here are describing are too extreme.We dknt know if their applications were truely routine or not,amongst other factors.With the $44M allocated to citizenship applications entirely,the process must surely be much faster now.After all,25 months routine applications rpresent 80% applications received,granted and denied! So thats the Maximum time it takes,not minimum.So...some pple here arent mentioning their applications had mishaps along the way.
I really don't think that it will affect a lot of applications already in process. That certainly wouldn't be fair, but fairness appears to be too much to ask. My point is that the vast majority of people on these forum already have their application pending for over a year. Even if we all applied as soon as we got eligible, there is no point in canceling our application: we'll immediately turn around and re-apply. 3 years out of 4, or 4 out of 6, we are still eligible as of today, so are hundreds of thousands of other applicants. Throwing us away won't fix the backlog, it will only increase waste, because CIC already spent a lot of resources to get our applications where they are. Will they really want to redo them again? I don't think so. Pausing all applications for a year won't work either, because people will be abandoning their applications and submitting new ones. Unless they put a complete freeze on accepting new citizenship applications for a year, it's all pointless, but that seems too extreme, I can't imagine how such a measure could turn up in the Citizenship Act. After all we haven't applied for work permits or something like that.
My guess is that the new residence requirement will apply to new applications only. In addition, they may draw a line for pending applications, saying that for example all applications where processing has not yet commenced, will be paused or returned - this sounds like something they can do. The backlog can be eliminated by reducing the intake of new applications and increasing their staff (at least temporarily). The latter is already happening.
My guess is that the new residence requirement will apply to new applications only. In addition, they may draw a line for pending applications, saying that for example all applications where processing has not yet commenced, will be paused or returned - this sounds like something they can do. The backlog can be eliminated by reducing the intake of new applications and increasing their staff (at least temporarily). The latter is already happening.
I think the current back log is close to 300K or so... Every year close to 200-225k peoples become PR's which include( direct PR's, spouses, students becoming PR, work permit holders getting PR etc ) - Based on this annual number.. every 3rd year if not all i would assume 85% of these new immigrants become eligible for citizenship. So even increasing timeline to 4 years this will not solve any problems because the influx is at same levels since last so many years and i guess eligibility may drop from 85% to 60% but still the problem will remain there. To avoid delays they should have enough resources to process at least as much applications as the number of people getting residencies. The best way to expedite the process is to increase budget, hire more staff, i guess rely more on CBSA records - Right now they charge $200 per application if they raise the fee to $400; people won't mind paying if the process takes 4-6 months rather 35 months.
Yolka said:
Well, the great job is yet to be seen tomorrow when he will table the new bill, if the decision is to make it proactive and touch current applications, then he will go down in history as the most cruel CIC minister in the history of Canada...
There is no need to panic ladies and gentelmen, they will not apply the rules retroactively on applications already recieved.
I had my application returned due to a missing document and it clearly stated on the letter that all applications are processed based on the rules and regulations that is in place at the time the application is recieved. And my citizenship application had a big red stamp on it with the same date that Canada post traking system said it was deliverd on. So i think they acually open the files on the same date its recieved then let it set somewhere untill its reviewed.
Just wear your seatbelts and enjoy the ride
I had my application returned due to a missing document and it clearly stated on the letter that all applications are processed based on the rules and regulations that is in place at the time the application is recieved. And my citizenship application had a big red stamp on it with the same date that Canada post traking system said it was deliverd on. So i think they acually open the files on the same date its recieved then let it set somewhere untill its reviewed.
Just wear your seatbelts and enjoy the ride
