jabbo1000

I am a permanent resident, hoping to become a citizen. I have just read there has been an extension to the citizenship waiting times - up to 9 years - insane.

My question is, does marrying a Canadian citizen speed up this process? I am actually getting married this year (not for this purpose I may add!).

christmasoompa

Hi, and welcome to BE.

Marrying a Canadian citizen doesn't speed anything up, no. But where have you read that it's now a 9 year wait? Not heard that before, about 18 months is the norm.

How long have you been a PR for, are you eligible to apply now?

MarkG

Where did you read that?

As far as I'm aware, the rules are still that you have to have been in Canada for at least three years in the last four, then you have a typical wait of about eighteen months for the citizenship test and ceremony.

So you can get citizenship in less than five years from landing in Canada, and many people have.

jabbo1000

Thanks for the quick replies! It's in today's Toronto Star site. There's new steps now in place to cut down on fraud - which will add years to the process. I will have been living here as a PR for 3 years come this July and plan to apply for citizenship straight away - the long wait times now are insane - was hoping for another route via marraige but does not look like there is :-(.

MarkG

OK, that's for the people who can't prove they've been resident for three years in four, which has always caused long delays. So make sure that doesn't apply to you .

christmasoompa

Oh well, if it's in a newspaper then it must be true right?

Those steps (assuming you're referring to the residency questionnaries?) aren't that new, and also aren't applied to everybody either, so you may well have a perfectly normal processing time.

MarkG

From the article it sounds like they're handing out a lot more RQs than they used to, so the delay has now increased from a year or so to four years. The increase in RQs probably isn't a bad thing given the number of dubious-looking posts I saw on other immigration sites asking how they could avoid getting one when I was reading up on the citizenship test online.

christmasoompa

Totally agree. But it certainly isn't going to mean that the wait time for everybody is 9 years!

jabbo1000

Ah that's good - I guess I didn't read it properly - duped by the sensationalist press article! Need to give it a proper read.

righttoroam

I thought it odd that the newspaper article said that she got the RQ AFTER having written the test - I always thought that the test was the last step?
Clearly not I guess.

MarkG

As I understand it, after the test the citizenship judge checks the paperwork and if they're not happy about proof of residency they send out an RQ. Unless the judge is there on the day and may be able to check it straight away.