Citizenship Legislation Pre-Messaging

Starting with an interview with Citizenship and Immigration Minister Alexander, he confirms his focus will be on implementation of policy changes of Minister Kenney, with the exception of citizenship legislation, developed largely during Minister Kenney’s time, will be stickhandled through Parliament by Minister Alexander.

Promise of lower wait times and backlogs should be matched by better performance information and service standards, publicly available on a quarterly basis (i.e., not requiring ATIP requests), to ensure accountability.

Immigration Minister Chris Alexander promises lower wait times, fewer backlogs in 2014.

And pre-messaging on the upcoming changes to the Citizenship Act suggest the following elements:

• Longer residency requirements (currently three years, four to six years floated);
• No longer granting citizenship based upon place of birth (jus soli);
• Fast tracking citizenship from applicants from the Canadian forces (USA has similar provision);
• Possible improved citizenship processing compared to current 2 year processing times;
• Possible additional measures to address the remaining “Lost Canadians” for people caught without citizenship given their circumstances before 1947 when Canadian citizenship was instituted;
• Whether the government will revisit the second generation limit (it has signalled in the past that it will do so for crown servants working abroad).

As Canadian citizenship rules face an overhaul by the Harper government in 2014, here’s what to expect

Similar to my own list in The citizenship review: what to watch for (which included more “housekeeping” measures) but we shall see exactly what is in and what is out once the Bill is tabled.