Obviously I have not read the new "Discover Canada: The Rights and Responsibilities of Citizenship" completely; mostly seen the news reports and glanced at the history part online.
Must admit that I thought the previous one was light on history.
Of course I am of an age where I can ignore it, since I will not have to take the citizenship test to obtain citizenship. I smile. The age cutoff seems remarkably low to me. Not as if I would have had any difficulty with it; my wife insists I know many many things about Canada. She is a librarian and that's old school librarian, the shush shush and you better well shush indeed sort. Might have made a good Catholic teacher nun as well, well except for certain . . . better not go there.
Anyway, the new guide is out, online, and offers some light reading in moments of distraction.
CIC should not waste money. The money would be better spent on citizenship processing times. Im sorry but 7 months just to open the application is a JOKE!
ha ha, dpenabill. I look for your posts for genuine, well thought-out, unbiased information. This post gave me a little more insight on a different side of you...thanks :D
My wife probably would not appreciate that sort of humor (while suggesting I spell that "humour"), but to be sure, her librarian side is (among others :) ) very much a part why I love her and a large part of the attraction (we are both "intellectuals" or at least leaning heavily toward the intellectual). She used to frequent this site, back when we were applying, some time ago now (time does indeed fly), but I would have heard about my post if she still was.
In the meantime, btw, Aussie, there were at least some important aspects of the new Citizenship guide, such as the emphasis on gender equality and that certain behaviors culturally acceptable in other parts of the world are actually criminal in Canada. May not make much of a difference, but certainly a basic outline of what it means to be a Canadian should indeed highlight such matters.
How governments spend money, allocate financial and other resources, is a very, very complicated matter. It is not like budgeting a household or even a small business. Whether or not the expenditure of funds in this instance had much impact on the administration of CIC generally, it is very unlikely it had any impact on processing timelines.
Moreover, the vast majority of "applications" received by CIC are not only opened and "in process" in less than seven months, a very large number are processed to completion in that time frame, including a very significant number of spousal sponsored PR applications (you often see, in the forums, reports of PR applicants landing in six months or less). But many other applications, ranging from applications to extend or modify status, to applications for various types of visas other than PR, are "opened" and processed in significantly less than seven months. CIC has a great deal in its court, a lot on its plate, and lots of conflicting policies and objectives to accommodate. Overall they do an amazing job. Not much comfort, I acknowledge, to those whose cases are among those sidetracked or off the rails, and indeed, there appears to be a huge discrepancy between the run-of-the-mill cases, which are processed timely and relatively quickly (remembering how complex the system is, and "relatively" being in the context of other nations similarly beseiged with visa applications), and the cases which are, for whatever reason (recognizing that more than a few are for unfair reasons), not a run-of-the-mill case. The latter seem to fall into an abyss. That undoubtedly deserves some attention and the re-allocation of resources.
I am sorry for not being as intellectual as you dpenabill. But 6 months just to open the application is a JOKE! Sorry but it is!
I am confident that the funding for the new citizenship guide has had minimal impact on the funding for processing citizenship applications or CIC processes generally.
Perhaps you do not believe that problems with honour killings, illustrated at their worst by the recent deaths of several women found in the Rideau Canal, are that important, or likewise issues regarding the spousal abuse and female gential mutilation that some cultures accept (or apparently accept), but these are occurring often enough that addressing the issue in a salient venue, like the citizenship guide, seems, to me, to be a message worth sending . . . though more than that needs to be done.
In the meantime, are you suggesting that resources be re-allocated from processing spousal sponsored PR applications, seeking to reunite families, so that citizenship applications can be processed more quickly?
My impression is also that citizenship applications are processed in batches, so that how long it takes any particular applicant may vary depending on when they submitted relative to when CIC is processing.
agree with the 6-month to open envelope, that is just too much!
Only 250,000 odd people come to Canada every year.........and only the same number (give or take some) will be eligible in 3 years anyways.
I don't understand why the timeline has increased, whereas the requirement and waiting time to apply (residence requirement) is still the same.
I just wonder how one knows what is a reasonable amount of time for the processing of these applications, how much of its limited resources a government should devote to accelerating the process. I mean, against what standard is the little over a year the whole process takes being measured? The spoiled American-brat, "I want it and I want it now?" standard? The old world, years and years of bureaucratic red tape standard? Current processing of similar applications in other so-called modern industrialized countries that deal with large influxes of immigrants?
I suppose I may be singing another tune by the summer of 2012, but it seems to me that an application for citizenship is not an urgent matter and that patience is warranted. I do not know why the process takes as long as it does. I hope the background screening and assessment is comparable to the immigration process itself, given how much more difficult it is to revoke citizenship and deport persons who have engaged in serious criminal activity, immigration fraud, or other security concerns, once they become citizens. I believe in mobility but I also believe in restraining the mobility of dangerous persons. Though, as I said, I am not at all sure that the level of scrutiny of citizenship applicants is substantial let alone part of the reason for the time it takes, though I hope that is part of the reason.
For now, anyway, I feel like it is an honor to be a Canadian, and it will be a much larger honor to be made a citizen. I don't expect it to be an exercise in rubber-stamping. I expect it to mean something. I look forward to a great deal. I hope I can remain patient when the time comes.
As for the relationship between increased processing timelines and waiting time to apply (noting that it really is not a "waiting" time, it is a qualification requirement), there is none. Why in the world would the requirements to qualify to be a citizen change because the processing timeline expands (or shrinks)? That said, the probable, highly highly probable reason for the expanding timeline is pretty obvious: numbers versus limited resources, due some to shifting priorities and throwing more bodies into the FSW and related immigration app assessment process. This is not rocket science.