sharkus

For her application, background check wasn't the first thing to be marked as completed. She actually took and passed her citizenship test, and that changed over to completed in late December 2021. The next thing that was marked as completed was the background check this morning. I'm not sure what order they process the things in. For example, the residency calculation item is not listed as completed, and you would have thought that might be one of the first things they'd check, as why bother going through the other items if you don't meet that criteria.

ChrisBan

How long has it been before people got the letter/email with information regarding ceremony? I was assuming as soon as it changed to in progress it wouldn’t be long before an email came through with the info needed but I haven’t got anything yet

ChrisBan

nevermind, letter came through a couple hours later

Curlew

Given world events, this now seems rather minor, but my ceremony was held successfully last Monday and I am now a Canadian citizen. There was a brief issue with Zoom which caused some slight panic, but overall a great experience.

As a new citizen, I'm happy to hear Canada doing its utmost to help Ukrainian refugees fast-track their entry into this wonderful nation.

DandNHill

Congratulations!

duchessofc

Congratulations! I am little panicked about the whole online ceremony thing, so good to hear it went well for you. And I wholeheartedly agree - it's great to see Canada do its part to help Ukrainian refugees.

sharkus

Any ideas how long from when everything except the Oath Ceremony item has changed to "completed" until the Oath one changes it's state, and / or an email is sent about when to take the oath.

ChrisBan

for me, it was exactly 3 months.

Had my ceremony yesterday, officially a citizen now. Quite the journey, just over 10 years since I entered on my first IEC.

now just have to wait for my citizenship cert so I can get applying for my passport, hopefully a bit quicker than the 2-4 weeks they’ve said for it to be mailed out.

sharkus

Firstly, Congratulations! Secondly, thanks for the info. Passing that number on to someone could have an interesting result!

DandNHill

Ours took about six weeks but there was Xmas and New Years in the middle. Good luck

ChrisBan

Got my citizenship certificate yesterday, just under 3 weeks. Now applying for my passport, perhaps a stupid question but when it says “mothers surname at birth” is that at my birth or her birth

PottsyJ

Hi ChrisBan, you are just a bit further along than me in the process and I am a year shy of you from first IEC. My citizenship status has barely changed since my test in January, mostly still on progress so really not sure when I can expect my ceremony. Also a bit worried about the lack of change as it seems that most people notice everything changing except the ceremony whereas mine only changed for test and background verification. Hoping there isnt something holding it up.

Congrats on the ceremony and citizenship!

duchessofc

I checked the CIC website yesterday and saw that the processing time for grant of citizenship has more than doubled. It was previously 12 months, now it is 27
Ugh. I was hoping to acquire citizenship before the end of this year (I applied in September 2021) so this is very disappointing

PottsyJ

Yes it truly is awful. Its about time they stopped using covid as reasons for such significant delays given they have never been fast at processing. I have a Canadian friend that has never lived in the UK and only has one relative with british citizenship in her father, he hasn't lived there for almost 30 years but she was granted full British citizenship in 3 months and only paid 30gbp. The process in Canada from prior to PR to gaining citizenship is 1000s of dollars and about 5-6 years for most people these days. I gained the ability to apply for citizenship as quick as possible after PR and even with that I might have to consider a PR renewal before I gain citizenship.

christmasoompa

Sounds like your friend had been a British citizen by descent since birth. If she’d applied for citizenship it would have cost £1330 (plus courier costs, document fees etc) and taken a heck of a lot longer.

If one was in the UK on a similar route (work visa, then ILR - the UK equivalent to Canadian PR, then citizenship) it would cost a lot more than the same process in Canada. https://www.gov.uk/government/public...-february-2022

HTH.