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EDITED: Coffee? Check. New Citizenship Forms? Check.

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[EDITED VERSION IN THE HARSH REALITY OF OCT 12]

Oct 11, 2017. Today is the day the new citizenship law comes into force. Sometime in the dead of last night, the IRCC elves uploaded the new forms and checklists to the website. [EDIT: It turned out that the IRCC elves were half asleep (or just messing with us) when they uploaded the forms online in the wee hours of Oct 11. So once typed, the forms could not be printed. This wasn’t corrected until about 3pm Atlantic time.]

Under the new rules, you must live in Canada for 3 out of 5 years as a permanent resident to qualify for Canadian citizenship. If you have also lived in Canada temporarily during those 5 years, each temporary day counts for half of a full day, up to a maximum of 1 year. So for example, if you were here as a student for 2 years, then became a PR, you can apply for citizenship after just 2 years living here as a PR within that 5-year window.

If you are between 18-54, you have to show proof of English or French language ability, you have to provide proof of filing CRA income tax returns and police clearances for any country you have lived in outside of Canada during the 5-year window. There is now an option on the forms to change sex designation.

The biggest surprise to me is the application fee is still $630 for adults and $530 for minors*. It used to be $200. I was hoping that with the new rules, there would be a renewed benevolence on the fee issue, to ensure citizenship is not cost-prohibitive. Sadly, that didn’t happen. [EDIT: it’s actually $100 for minors applying with an adult. The $530 is for minors who are applying for citizenship alone.]

We have a pile of applications waiting to be assembled and a courier heading to Cape Breton this afternoon to deliver them to the IRCC Case Processing Centre in Sydney. [EDIT: IRCC’s external (and apparently also internal) computer system crashed badly yesterday. Nevertheless, we still made the courier deadline and sent our first package of applications to Sydney at 4:30. I had a quick word with the applications before they left the building. Godspeed guys, and good luck in Sydney.]

First giant coffee of the day is finished.

Here’s to being good-busy.

[EDIT: But next time, let’s try not to have a heart attack.]

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Spring 2017 – Immigration Round-Up

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So much has been going on here at North Star Immigration Law that my head is spinning. We are expanding to a bigger space in a few months, have hired a new articling clerk and are in the process of a website revamp. To all the people whose calls I haven’t returned in the past few weeks – my apologies, I am getting to you!  But all of this pales in comparison to the changes afoot in immigration law and policy.

The new permanent residence process for spouses of Canadians is in full swing, and the reason I know this is that the lawyers in our office who deal with these applications are often seen pounding their heads on their desks trying to “link up” the application to the online system, as required. What was supposed to make things simpler has turned out to be a massive pain with more steps, more minefields and more opportunities for mistakes. But who ever said love was easy?

Speaking of love, I am feeling very sad for the 85,000 disappointed candidates who did not get selected in the parent sponsorship lottery. The lottery was hastily put together in mid-December. It was ill-thought out and it is going to create headaches for IRCC for months – if not years – to come. None of our clients (who qualified to sponsor their parent(s)) were selected. Worse, most the people who were selected and have consulted us for help with the forms do not actually qualify, so won’t make it through the program. So it will be interesting to find out how many of the total 10,000 drawn are actually qualified to sponsor? Psst…IRCC – how about next year making the questions more specific to ensure no one puts their name in the hat without actually meeting the requirements? Just a thought.

In other news, the age of dependents will go up to 22 on October 24, 2017, with some transitional provisions. This is great news for a lot of people.

The citizenship rules will also change in terms of requirements to qualify for a grant of citizenship and, as of the Federal Court’s decision yesterday, revocation proceedings. To put it politely, citizenship rules are still in flux, and will be for the foreseeable future.

Meanwhile, as the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration for the Study on Immigration Consultants is underway, the new Atlantic Immigration Pilot Program (AIPP) has completely cut representatives out of this new program, which is being hailed as the be all and end all solution of Atlantic Canada’s immigration problem. Which is weird because there’s a rule that representatives must be authorized and disclosed (i.e. see s. 91 or IRPA or  “Concealed Representatives”). Under the AIPP, if clients or employers want to hire us to assist them, we are relegated to ghosting on the files only  – the NS Office of Immigration only communicates with the employers and applicants – there is no where we can even disclose ourselves as legal reps.

So that’s the round-up.

Yeehaw?

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