Appalling! Hope some of us in the future go into leadership roles at these agencies and work towards making some much needed changes , keeping the future citizens of this country in mind and actually give them a welcoming experience
Regarding Delayed Applications - Possible Reason
- Thread starter Leoro619
- Start date
Can you imagine you being employed to run this organization and the board finds out how inefficient you are. Never meeting service standards, never addressing customer complaints, lack of accountability, taking 2 years to train staff to use computers and so on. Do you think you'll keep the job? Your local Walmart is run better than IRCC
It is a shame and they are able to get away with it because they know that citizenship applicants have nowhere else to go but to wait out patiently, no recourse to an ombudsman or the legal system because they have put a large, arbitrary service time of 24 months to protect themselves. It is also a completely unacceptable timeline , 3 years after the pandemic. Playing the same old record of covid delays is getting too old.
It is not entirely clear that only Foreign Nationals (rather than Canadians who are Permanent Residents) are affected, but clear enough that the vast majority of those affected by files assigned to inactive immigration officers are FNs and involve immigration applications, NOT applications for citizenship, or Canadian PRs in other contexts.
So that is almost certainly NOT much of a factor, if any at all, in the lengthy delays in processing so many applicants for citizenship have suffered, scores still suffering. (Does not make it any less problematic, or any less disconcerting and disappointing, but it does not explain citizenship application delays.)
Nonetheless, it is representative of just one among many ways in which a bureaucracy like IRCC can fail, and too often does fail. As such it highlights, in particular, one more example of ways in which individual applications can run into a snag. Perhaps I have erred in giving the impression that when a citizenship application encounters a "snag," delaying its progress, emphasizing that is more often about something particular to the individual applicants, that happens because of an issue with the applicant. Sorry, yes, there are also all too many examples of bureaucratic bungling that can snag a particular individual's application and cause problems, including delays in processing.
Thus, even though many if not most of the ATIP requests for personal information in individual GCMS citizenship application files, as discussed in this forum, are mere busy work, of little or no import, not much useful, SOMETIMES, for some individuals, this can be an important recourse. Sometimes applicants really need to take action to make sure their application is still actually being processed.
The hard part is that during times like these, these last couple years, when the bureaucracy has broadly failed to adapt, and this has resulted in widespread, excessive, and general, if not near universal delays, the hard part is distinguishing whether the timeline, how long it is taking, is just part of the generally miserably slow processing being suffered across the board, or whether something has actually gone off the rails. This is important for at least two reasons:
-- knowing and understanding what to expect, recognizing that for many making real life decisions often hang in the balance
-- identifying if and when and what can be done to get things back on track
The good news, with a grey lining at best, is that for most applicants, probably the OP of this thread, it is likely there is nothing off the rails, no serious security concern delaying the CSIS clearance, similarly as to a RCMP clearance, regardless what the GCMS file shows about clearances, often even regardless what IRCC agents might say (mostly making excuses) about waiting on a background clearance. Most are just one more victim among the scores and scores of others suffering across the board processing inefficiencies and resulting delays. But there is nothing wrong about their particular application.
That's important for many. Getting some reassurance there is no particular problem in their own case, so there is no need for action on their part, so they can rely on the application proceeding. And eventually there will be an oath ceremony, and a certificate of citizenship . . . looking forward to when they are no longer just a Canadian (remembering that in Canadian immigration law, PRs are Canadians), but finally a Canadian citizen.
But one of the key clues that something has gone awry, off the rails, and is a real problem, something that needs giving attention, is running into an inordinate delay. Hard to see what's an inordinate delay during times like these when almost everyone is suffering an inordinate delay. So now, in the current milieu, to recognize if and when there is a problem often means trying to distinguish between what is an inordinate delay, generally, versus what is inordinate compared to others among the scores suffering lengthy (inordinate) delays.
For most, do not let conspiracy theory insinuations of nefarious IRCC plots to sabotage, or suppress some applicants, scare you. Odds are you are OK. Things are slow but getting there. For those who, based on actually comparing real information, apprehend their application is significantly falling behind others in similar situations, having applied around the same time, it is indeed a good idea to be proactive, to contact the call centre or make an ATIP request, to at least make sure the application has not fallen into some bureaucratic crack.
Some applicants, however, will get bogged down. Some trapped by a security concern, which means CSIS is slow or very slow in providing a clearance (protest they often will, but they mostly know who they are). Some snagged by a CBSA investigation, ranging from cessation investigations for PR-refugees to background scrutiny to verify physical presence.
For those just complaining, we hear you. There's lots to complain about. Unfortunately.
For those trying to discern if there is a problem that needs addressing, in their particular case, odds are you are OK but if things are going longer than others, no harm pushing a little, from GCMS requests to tapping on the shoulder of your riding's MP.
And yeah, they'll say otherwise, but most of the rest know who they are.