oldfriend said:
Question to dpenabill and seniors please , suppose that the bill c-6 has passed all the stages and got the royal assent and eventually became a law, how PRs who have already submitted their applications for citizenship ( for all processing stages : from "in process" ..... to "oath" and granting the citizenship and beyond ) will benefit from this bill.
While
screech339 is correct that for those applicants who applied under the 4/6 rule and whose application is still pending when the 3/5 (that is,
IF and when the new law is adopted and takes effect) will need to meet the 4/6 rule qualification, that only covers a narrow slice of the answer to the question posed.
Indeed, to the extent the question is specifically about whether a 3/4 residency rule applies, a 4/6 presence rule, or the new 3/5 presence rule, generally the rule in effect at the time the application is made will dictate the rule that applies:
-- for applications made prior to June 11, 2015 and still in process, the 3/4 residency rule will govern
-- for applications made after June 11, 2015 and before the 3/5 rule
comes-into-force, the 4/6 physical presence rule governs
-- for applications made after the 3/5 rule
comes-into-force, the 3/5 rule will govern
But again, that only covers a slice of what provisions govern which applications.
Overall, it is important to keep in mind that the date Bill C-6 becomes law, the date it is given Royal Assent (assuming this will happen), is
NOT the date triggering whose application is subject to which rules, but rather the
coming-into-force date will, for many provisions, determine whose application is governed by which rules. And various parts of the new rules governing grant citizenship can come into force on different dates. There are, in fact, four different groups of provisions which can
come-into-force on four completely different dates (one group comes into force on the date of Royal Assent, the others on a date to be determined by the Governor in Council), and how the provisions get applied to particular applicants with pending applications depends in part on the order in which these groups of provisions
come-into-force. (Actually there are five groups, but only four involve provisions governing the grant of citizenship.)
Anyone who thinks they have a chart outlining what will happen, in terms of what will
come-into-force and how that will affect different applicants, I would like to see that. For now, all we have is Bill C-6 itself and its
Transitional Provisions, sections 14 through 23 of the Bill, of which sections 14 through 19 govern the provisions regarding grant citizenship, plus the
Coming into Force provision, Section 27 in Bill C-6, which for purposes of grant citizenship has three separate groups of provisions which may
come-into-force on different dates, apart from those which
come-into-force as of Royal Assent.
For reference:
this is a link to latest published version of Bill C-6
Also note, for example, there are bound to be some applicants with pending applications made prior to June 11, 2015. Those will continue to be
mostly governed by the grant citizenship requirements in the
Citizenship Act as it prescribed on June 10, 2015 (those who applied under the 3/4 rule will still be governed by the 3/4 rule for example).
For those who applied after June 11, 2015 and still have their application in process, the
intent to reside requirement will no longer apply, and will be deemed to be as if it never applied (even though their application required affirmation of this intent).
Similarly, for those who applied after June 11, 2015 and still have their application in process, the language and knowledge of Canada requirements will be governed by the new, Bill C-6 provisions,
after the respective provisions in Bill C-6
come-into-force, which might
NOT be the same date as the 3/5 rule provisions
come-into-force.
And there is what happens for applicants who make their application after parts of Bill C-6 take effect but before other parts take effect, for whom it is a little more complicated to unravel the
if . . . then possibilities. (My guess is that there is a plan to organize the sequence to minimize differences in what applies to whom, to make it less complicated in practice than the cross-referencing in the provisions make it appear.)
