MountainLife said:
What are the chances the Bill will reach Royal Assent this year? And if it does... wouldn't that mean all of the "Citizenship Act" changes it covers come into law as well ie the 3/5 rule, pre-residency time etc? Why would the 3/5 rule take longer than the rest of the Bill?
Or are you meaning, the whole Bill won't reach Royal Assent until 2017?
The odds are probably good that Bill C-6 will reach Royal Assent this year, perhaps sooner rather than later (but this is still subject to contingencies, such as whether other legislation gets more priority before the summer break and, of course, the not-entirely-predictable Senate).
Like many legislative enactments, various parts of Bill C-6 are governed by
coming-into-force provisions. These are part of Bill C-6 itself. If the Bill is silent (contains no
coming-into-force provision) about a part of the Bill, that part
comes-into-force when the law itself is adopted. That means as of the date of Royal Assent.
Many parts of the Bill, however, are subject to a specific
coming-into-force provision. Like most
coming-into-force provisions in other legislation, these mostly give the
Governor-in-Council the authority to specify certain dates for when certain parts of the Bill
come-into-force.
Thus, for example, for Bill C-6, (if I recall correctly) the part which repeals and removes the
intent-to-reside requirement is not subject to a
coming-into-force provision, so that will take effect as of the date of Royal Assent.
In contrast, for example, the part which amends the physical presence requirement, that is which implements a 3/5 rule rather than the current 4/6 rule, is subject to a
coming-into-force provision which is to be determined by the
Governor-in-Council. Thus, this part of Bill C-6 will not come into force until some time after the date of Royal Assent. My understanding is that Minister McCallum has already suggested there will in fact be a substantial wait before the 3/5 rule comes into force.
Again, this is common. The departments and agencies and ministries of government which actually manage and administer the government often need time to prepare for changes in law like this. Additionally there may be other logistical factors which influence the timing for when parts of legislation should take effect, and indeed Minister McCallum has at least alluded to the need to time the
coming-into-force of the 3/5 rule so that IRCC is prepared to avoid this causing a backlog due to a large number of new applications.
I have avoided getting into the
guessing-when game, but I do think it is safe to say that while the 3/5 may take effect late this year, it is more likely to not take effect until sometime next year. But that is a total guess. All we really know is that it will not happen soon, not before significantly later this year.