acer rose

Vancouver office citizenship timeline:
Applied 27 March 2010
Test: 23 June 2011
Oath: 24 August 2011

Test day details:
At my test they were quoting a wait of 3 - 4 months for citizenship ceremony. Test did not seem "easy peasy" but I finished in 3 minutes. I took another 3 minutes to check and double check (worth spending another few minutes to avoid further delays having to be called to see a judge IMO). After the test everybody is sent to another room to be interviewed. I was almost last up to be interviewed so the total time spent at the CIC office on test day was about 3 hours.

Oath day summary:
Nice little speech from the judge. Thoroughly pleasant experience all round.

Misc:
PR card expired 14 February 2011, PR car renewal wait 200+ days, signature cards for PR card renewal arrived August 9th (second attempt to get it), letter calling me to citizenship ceremony arrived August 10th, applied for passport 26 August 2011, passport supposed to be ready for collection 12 September 2011, holiday flights booked for 16 September 2011... Anybody been successful getting past Canadian Affair's renta-mall-cop at Manchester and actually getting onto a Canadian Affair flight back to Canada using UK passport and the really high tech laminated laserprint jobby that is the official citizenship certificate

Steve_

It's all a bit dicey, if you ask the Canadian High Commission or google it, it says basically you must have a passport. However CBSA said to me that a citizenship certificate and UK passport were fine as British citizens don't require visas and the certificate is proof of citizenship and will be accepted at POEs and the passport meets the IATA requirements. Travel regs say you must have proof, and the certificate is proof.

However explaining all this to the average person at check-in didn't seem worth the effort to me. The fact you need proof at all is a Canadian law and how familiar with that law are they? CBSA said the regs would usually pop up on their computer system but it's the airline's computer system at the end of the day, who knows how it works, so I personally decided it, sod it, get a passport.

Ramsey

Confirmation and guide-book received today! Dated 25th August.... Only 1 month??!!..... Sweet!.... Now what do you reckon the chances of Calgary being that quick??



Applied - July 20 2011
Confirmation - Sep 13 2011 (dated Aug 25 2011)

canadian_critic

April 2010 - Application received by CIC
November 2010 - Confirmation and booklet
Feb 2011 - Files sent to Vancouver CIC office
June 2011 - Invite for test
July 2011 - Test (not easy)
August 2011 - Invite to ceremony
September 2011 - Ceremony, applied for Canadian PPs

JonboyE

If you look carefully at the laminated citizenship certificate in the right light you can just see details etched into the plastic. I don't know how forgery proof they are, but at least it allows someone to quickly check it wasn't run up on someone's home laminating machine.

Ramsey

Update:

Applied - July 20 2011
Confirmation - Sep 13 2011 (dated Aug 25 2011)
Processing - Dec 1 2011

This seems to be moving faster than I was expecting??!!

danfolkestone

With any luck, Calgary is on a role.

I mailed my application at the start of November and received my confirmation today, dated November 30.

roxye3

WOW! Really? I sent mine December 2010 and got my confirmation in Feb 2011. (2 months). Found out last week that my status has changed from "Received" to In "Process".

Steve_

When I did the citizenship test in Calgary, I got chatting with one of the women at the office there and was asking why it took so long and she said I should think myself lucky because it was only going to get worse. They used to do the test in the morning and the ceremony in the afternoon, she said they were just too rammed now to even contemplate doing it that way because there were too many people who failed (because of language difficulties must be because the test was piss easy), had to take it again and that just created more demand.

Also they've got no more staff and there are more and more people getting LPR status and then applying.

Ramsey

Can't comment on the Calgary part yet as "Processing" is the new "Sent to Calgary"

However the initial part of the application prior to being sent to Calgary appears to be pretty fast.

Random posts on the trusty interwebs seem to suggest getting a test date about a month after the "Processing" staus....

Not holding my breath, of course!

Tangram

"We received your application for Canadian citizenship (grant of citizenship) on December 1, 2010.

We sent you a letter acknowledging receipt of your application(s), and a study book called A Look at Canada on December 1, 2010. Please consider delays in mail delivery before contacting us.

We started processing your application on November 15, 2011.

Your file was transferred to the Moncton office on December 2, 2011. The Moncton office will contact you if additional information is required. The Moncton office will contact you regarding your citizenship test once all the necessary checks on your file are complete."

Is this good news ? Generally how long is it between file being sent to an office and request to attend test ?

Flossie and Jim

Citizenship application sent: 20 February 2011
Acknowledgement and booklet: 15 March 2011
Just received notice to appear for citizenship test for Calgary: 27 January 2012.

It also says if we pass the test the ceremony will be held in the afternoon.

ann m

We are about five days different from you guys! Calgary are going faster than I thought.

We applied 15th Feb 2011, got the acknowledgement and booklet about 13th March.

And have today received our letter - test (and hopefully, presuming we pass, the ceremony) on 23rd January.

Best get revising eh?

Tangram

They seem to be quicker than out in the boonies anyway.

Flossie and Jim

Psst! Perhaps you can tell us the answers