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October 2021 - Citizenship Applications

e_ca

Star Member
May 23, 2016
149
86
How would becoming a citizen affect your life planning and goals? The only ways I can think of:

1. Get a job where being a citizen is a requirement - in which case, you can apply for urgent processing. I have personally helped a friend do this and they got approved within 5 months of application.

2. Be able to leave the country and live elsewhere - in which case, you can leave, since the intent to reside in Canada has been removed as prerequisite for citizenship. You still maintain your PR for the next three years at least, by which time you should have obtained your citizenship. I have done this - moved to the US to be with my spouse. Yes, there are risks associated with this, but I don't see it as major, so long as one hasn't at any point misrepresented their intentions to IRCC. And regardless, this is on me. IRCC is under no obligation to process my application quickly to allow me to leave the country. I certainly don't think I have the right to complain when it has not even been a year since I applied and average processing time is 27 months.

3. Get citizenship to be able to apply for TN visa to move to US - Similar to last point, that's on you.... not something Canada is obligated to help you with because it was not the intent of them granting you your PR.

The only other way that I can see it affects us, is with regard to our ability to vote, and while this is important and a great privilege to have, I don't see how not being able to vote is stressful or difficult.

All in all, while an important status to hold, I don't see the delay in obtaining it causing stress or difficulty on us applicants. On the other hand I see the delays in grants of PR, especially for refugees and to a lesser degree applicants who live abroad in countries with less than ideal conditions, being absolutely stressful and difficult. I would happily wait 27 months to get my citizenship if it meant that those PR applications are prioritised.

Sorry long post, but hoping to put things into perspective here for some people feeling frustrated.
Good for you but not everyone is patient enough. Can't compare everyone's experiences to the same. People have travel plans, family and health issues and everything in between which they can get fixed in other places faster than here. On PR you can't stay out for too long while you get your health and family issues fixed. It's not Canada's problem but 27 months is a long time for something that used to take 6 months pre-covid and 12 months during covid. Online applications when your file is not moving for months as compared to paper applicants. Good luck and hopefully this provides some empathy perspective.
 

Wacky1.nash

Hero Member
Jul 18, 2017
624
685
Singapore
I totally understand your point but its not fair that Online applicants will be processed in 27 months whereas most of paper applications are processing in less than a year. Processing time of 27 months should be fore new applications but paper applications submitted after October also processed quickly than online applicants.
How have you concluded that online will be processed in 27 months? Since December 2020 when online applications started ((only 19 months ago), there have been thousands of online applicants who have taken oath. Many of them (not most) having gotten it within a year of application.

How have you concluded that most paper applicants are processed within a year. I took a look at June and July 2021 spreadsheets. Both have less than 50% approved, and have just as many online applicants approved as paper ones.

How have you concluded "paper applications submitted after October also processed quickly than online applicants." Just because paper applicants are getting test invites faster? So what? There is no indication as demonstrated by my previous point, that leads to ultimately a faster oath invitation...

You appear to have made several incorrect conclusions, and getting upset by them.

But them even if what you concluded were to be true - paper applicants will get processed faster than online (at least for now), then why is that a reason to be upset. You had the choice to apply either way, and you chose to apply online. IRCC never said that both would be processed at equal speed. Also I go back to my previous post - at the end of the day, there really is no urgency to acquire citizenship. So what is the reason to be aggravated.
 

Wacky1.nash

Hero Member
Jul 18, 2017
624
685
Singapore
Good for you but not everyone is patient enough. Can't compare everyone's experiences to the same. People have travel plans, family and health issues and everything in between which they can get fixed in other places faster than here. On PR you can't stay out for too long while you get your health and family issues fixed. It's not Canada's problem but 27 months is a long time for something that used to take 6 months pre-covid and 12 months during covid. Online applications when your file is not moving for months as compared to paper applicants. Good luck and hopefully this provides some empathy perspective.
Travel plans - unless you are a refugee and do not have a travel document, you can travel with your home country passport.

Family and health issues - I can't imagine with free Canadian healthcare, you would want to go elsewhere for treatment, but even if you do, again, you have your home country passport. You can visit any sick relatives with your home country passport as well.

Can't stay out too long - I live in the states. So you are wrong, it can be done. Yes, the restriction is 3 years... but IRCC is not taking 36 months in most cases, far from it.

Online cases not moving faster than paper applications - I have addressed this in my previous post.
 

manmoi31

Hero Member
Jul 21, 2017
484
163
How have you concluded that online will be processed in 27 months? Since December 2020 when online applications started ((only 19 months ago), there have been thousands of online applicants who have taken oath. Many of them (not most) having gotten it within a year of application.

How have you concluded that most paper applicants are processed within a year. I took a look at June and July 2021 spreadsheets. Both have less than 50% approved, and have just as many online applicants approved as paper ones.

How have you concluded "paper applications submitted after October also processed quickly than online applicants." Just because paper applicants are getting test invites faster? So what? There is no indication as demonstrated by my previous point, that leads to ultimately a faster oath invitation...

You appear to have made several incorrect conclusions, and getting upset by them.

But them even if what you concluded were to be true - paper applicants will get processed faster than online (at least for now), then why is that a reason to be upset. You had the choice to apply either way, and you chose to apply online. IRCC never said that both would be processed at equal speed. Also I go back to my previous post - at the end of the day, there really is no urgency to acquire citizenship. So what is the reason to be aggravated.
Thank you and it does make sense.
 
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Wacky1.nash

Hero Member
Jul 18, 2017
624
685
Singapore
t's not Canada's problem but 27 months is a long time for something that used to take 6 months pre-covid and 12 months during covid.
I do agree with this, and I hope it will improve.

Regardless, all our stats indicate it is not taking that long for most applications. It is more like 15 months, which I think is not bad.
 

e_ca

Star Member
May 23, 2016
149
86
Travel plans - unless you are a refugee and do not have a travel document, you can travel with your home country passport.

Family and health issues - I can't imagine with free Canadian healthcare, you would want to go elsewhere for treatment, but even if you do, again, you have your home country passport. You can visit any sick relatives with your home country passport as well.

Can't stay out too long - I live in the states. So you are wrong, it can be done. Yes, the restriction is 3 years... but IRCC is not taking 36 months in most cases, far from it.

Online cases not moving faster than paper applications - I have addressed this in my previous post.
If you believe Canadian healthcare is good, good for you. Like I said not everyone has the same story. So learn to empathize. Everything is based on data. I don't want to wait for surgery/treatment where it gets so worse that I am at the point of no return medically. I personally had to wait for 5 hours in ER before anyone came and addressed me. Healthcare is not just having good facilities it also means better accessibility. Yes, facilities are good but accessibility is crap here. 1 month to just wait for primary care Dr? in which world this is good, by the time one gets access to a PC problem gets worse.

How many people have updated the tracker? Where are you getting that info from, for those people who are updating the tracker check compare paper vs online applications?

Rest about citizenship time. Data tells the truth, paper application is definitely faster. Just take the data and do the mean and median. At the same time you're also saying IRCC is telling lies by telling 27 months on average, where is that info coming from?
 

GD.Iron.80

Star Member
Mar 21, 2022
199
170
You had the choice to apply either way, and you chose to apply online. IRCC never said that both would be processed at equal speed. Also I go back to my previous post - at the end of the day, there really is no urgency to acquire citizenship. So what is the reason to be aggravated.
The data on the tracker is quite clear that paper applications are being processed faster. You just need to look at the Decision Made or Oath sections and you'll see that paper applications dominate. People who applied on paper months after online applicants are getting their test invites etc...

In regards to your comment "You chose to apply online", we had no clue that online meant slower processing and a complete lack of any action taken even after 8 months of applying. There is also a document obtained from IRCC that online applications are capped at a very small quota. It's on the forum here (I'll need to dig it out). Trust me, if any of us online applicants knew that paper will be processed so much faster we'd all apply via paper. There was no disclaimer from IRCC stating that and/or transparency that online applications are still in some form of Beta testing stage.

Realistically, a routine application, should be processed in less than 6 months easily, so the aggravation stems from their increased and let's be honest unreasonable time of "27 months average processing time".
 

Wacky1.nash

Hero Member
Jul 18, 2017
624
685
Singapore
If you believe Canadian healthcare is good, good for you. Like I said not everyone has the same story. So learn to empathize. Everything is based on data. I don't want to wait for surgery/treatment where it gets so worse that I am at the point of no return medically. I personally had to wait for 5 hours in ER before anyone came and addressed me. Healthcare is not just having good facilities it also means better accessibility. Yes, facilities are good but accessibility is crap here. 1 month to just wait for primary care Dr? in which world this is good, by the time one gets access to a PC problem gets worse.

How many people have updated the tracker? Where are you getting that info from, for those people who are updating the tracker check compare paper vs online applications?

Rest about citizenship time. Data tells the truth, paper application is definitely faster. Just take the data and do the mean and median. At the same time you're also saying IRCC is telling lies by telling 27 months on average, where is that info coming from?
I am not going to debate healthcare here (although I have my thoughts, and they match yours in some respects), as that's besides the point. I already demonstrated that one can always leave the country to obtain healthcare elsewhere using their home passport and that Canadian citizenship makes no difference. I also already pointed out that staying abroad for 3 years is not a problem... Again, I live in the states...

I am getting my info from the spreadsheets. It's safe to assume that a roughly equal number of people with online/ paper applications have not updated the tracker, so over all one would be able to compare the the progress of the two from the spreadsheets.

Data is only saying that paper applicants are getting test invites faster, not necessarily that they are getting oath faster. I am not denying that it may end up being the case, but looking at applicants prior to one year, when one looks at overall timeline (from application date to oath) it appears to be quite similar.

I am not saying that IRCC is lying to us with respect to the 27 months, but I suspect this is an average all pending applications, and there are a few applications with very long timelines that skew the mean. Note that this is NOT a projected number, it is a data point of applications processed so far. If you look at the spreadsheets (2020 applicants and early 2021), most are processed within 15 months.

To sum up, so far I do not see definitive data that online is overall slower than paper, so getting worked up about it, seems premature.

Regarding "learning to empathise," I always try to... immigration can be immensely stressful, especially for those trying desperately to escape dangerous or economically tough situations, or those separated from their love ones. As people who are already PRs, I see myself and others in my shoes as being privileged, and needing to empathise with those less fortunate who are yet to escape those living conditions, and reunite with their family. I have been an expat/ immigrant my entire live, having lived in a number of countries, so immigration proceedings has been a constant in my life. I also roam in circles where immigration is always in the background. I can say, this particular one - applying for Canadian citizenship I have found to be least stressful, even a cakewalk. That being said, I totally get the excitement of becoming a citizen, of gaining this well deserved benefit which we have earned. The eagerness to participate in the democratic process and do your part in improving the country....So I understand the frustration of a long wait. But I would not call it stressful or difficult (unless it is said lightly).

I am going to stop engaging with you here. I am trying to respond logically to every point you are bringing up, but am finding you keep ignoring what I am saying, and pushing a rhetoric, making me having to repeat myself. it is getting tiring for me, and maybe for many of the readers here.
 
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