@Anford this is for sure not fair. That being said, it's nice to know they are changing, and the pandemic has brought in that change. The big question, why couldn't they have gone online a long time ago. Waiting for 12 months in the pre pandemic time, itself seemed rather ridiculous.
Honestly, if this is not addressed in a larger scale, it won't get fixed. To take valuable and stretched resources to work on applications from 2020 while 2019 applications lie stacked somewhere, is not clearly not fair. It's high time, they get working on the backlog.
It was the same when the express entry immigration was introduced. A lot of folks who waited for over 2 years and more in some cases, were outsmarted by those who used the express entry system .
Citizenship applications shouldn't ideally take 12 months. Our friendly neighbour takes only 2 to 3 months and less. Wonder why we are working with snail mail. And having relied on paper applications is absurd.
I just called CIC for 49 minutes and heard nothing else than
"covid"...."sorry"..."be patient"..."they last touched your application in July 2020"..."wait"...
The agent then sent me
a feedback form which I just submitted with the following:
"Hi
I fully understand there is COVID however it can no longer be used as an excuse for your processing speed at Vancouver office. You've had my citizenship application for more than a year and Vancouver office hasn't done any work on it since 07/2020 while people who submitted online citizenship applications in 12/2020 are now receiving their online citizenship test and this whole situation is very, very unfair of CIC, especially Vancouver office which is one of the slowest in Canada in comparison to other CIC offices.
Please reconsider how you deal with online applications vs older paper applications.
You received my application on 12/2019, Acknowledge of Receipt was sent in 02/2020 and you started processing it in 03/2020 however I still haven't heard back. I have submitted multiple web forms and called multiple times however nothing has changed.
I'm sorry for this feedback form but this whole situation is seriously affecting my life and I need to resolve it soon.
Thank you"
The feedback form is here:
https://secure.cic.gc.ca/feedback-retroaction/feedback-retroaction-eng.aspx in case anybody else wants to fill it out.