Welcoming the 150,000th New Citizen of 2014 – Canada News Centre

The latest citizenship processing stats:

Today, Canada’s Citizenship and Immigration Minister Chris Alexander announced that Canada has welcomed its 150,000th new citizen of 2014. This is double the number of new citizens compared to the same period in 2013 and thanks to the action taken by the government to reduce backlogs and improve processing times.

Alexander attended a citizenship ceremony in Scarborough and welcomed the country’s newest Canadians. At the event, Alexander highlighted the government’s recent changes to the citizenship system, which have led to improved processing times and an eight percent reduction to the citizenship backlog.

Given the backlog according to the February briefing package (C-24) was about 400,000 this means that it now stands at around 368,000, a reduction rate of roughly 4,000 per month (32,000 over 8 months – the exact rate may differ but this calculation is based on improved processing as of January 2014).

Accordingly to the graphic (above) in the briefing package, this rate should accelerate in 2015-16, given the impact of C-24 streamlining.

Welcoming the 150,000th New Citizen of 2014 – Canada News Centre.