Please join me in speaking out against the growing and unreasonable backlog of qualified immigrants who are being denied a fair and timely path to citizenship.

Presently Citizenship and Immigration Canada estimates that citizenship applicants who receive the Residence Questionnaire will wait an additional 4 years for their citizenship. Due to a rapidly ballooning backlog of citizenship applications and the increasing frequency of the labour-intensive Residence Questionnaire, tens of thousands of long-time residents will be kept in limbo for years or even indefinitely. This withholds the democratic rights of tax-paying immigrants who have built their lives, families and careers in Canada and it does so with no explanation or forewarning. It imposes travel hardships, employment constraints and years of uncertainty. Additionally, the growing backlog and lengthening delays leaves us vulnerable to an arbitrary mass elimination of our in-process applications, as happened with the CIC’s wipe-out of almost 100,000 Federal Skilled Worker applications that had been in the queue for 4 years or more. 

While the CIC has the right to verify the integrity of citizenship applications, they also have a responsibility to administer the grant of citizenship in a fair and timely manner. Qualified immigrants deserve a fair and timely path to citizenship.