Canadian Citizenship & Proposed Changes

A few weeks ago I published an article where I explained how to become a permanent resident of Canada. The whole process is complicated and takes a lot of time, but everyone who has enough motivation will achieve it eventually. The next step after getting PR is to apply for Canadian Citizenship so you will have all the extra rights & benefits, which I explained in the second post on this blog. In this post I will focus on the requirements for citizenship in Canada and proposed changes to the Citizenship Act by the Liberal government.

In order to be eligible to apply for Canadian citizenship you must meet each of the following requirements:

1.     PR status - your permanent residency status cannot be in question. In other words, you won't be able to apply for citizenship if you were involved in immigration fraud, convicted of a serious crime or lived in another country for more than 2 years in the last 5 years. This requirement is about the status, not the PR card. Even if your PR card expired, you can still apply to become a citizen if you meet all the other requirements.

2.     Time spent in Canada - according to the current rules, you must be a permanent resident for at least 4 out of the last 6 years, and you must live in Canada for at least 183 days during each of these years in order to be eligible. They will count only the time after you become a permanent resident.

Proposed changes - the Liberals want to reduce the time to 3 out of the last 5 years before the date of application, plus they will consider some of the time spent in Canada as a non-permanent resident (for example temporary worker or international student). Every day will be counted as a half-day up to a maximum of one year. This means that it will take at least two years after you become a permanent resident to be eligible to apply for citizenship. Under the current rules it's four years.

This link may be useful for people who would like to check if they lived in Canada for long enough to apply : Physical Presence Calculator

3.     Income tax filling - in Canada you have to file income tax return only if you worked during the year and there is a tax liability. If you did not file your income tax return in any of the last four years and you were supposed to do it as per the Income Tax Act, then you won't be eligible to apply for citizenship.

Proposed change - reduce the time to the last three years

4.     Intent to reside - according to the current rules, you must declare that you intend to live in Canada during the application process. Once you get the citizenship it's up to - you can move to another country and you will be able to keep your Canadian citizenship.

Proposed change - remove this provision from the Citizenship Act

5.     Language proficiency - in order to become Canadian, you must pass a language test to show that you can communicate in English or French. Both of them are allowed since both are official languages in this country. As of now, everyone aged 14-64 years has to reach CLB/NCLC level 4 or higher in speaking and listening. If you have completed a secondary or post-secondary program in either of these two languages in Canada or abroad, you may be exempted from this requirement if you can provide evidence of such education.

Proposed change - narrow the age bracket to 18-54 years.

You can check you CLB level here: CLB self-assessment

6.     Citizenship test - in addition to the language test, applicants aged 14-64 years have to take the citizenship test to show that they have adequate knowledge of Canada and the responsibilities & benefits that each citizen in Canada has. The test is focused on Canadian values, history, institutions and symbols.

Proposed change - similarly to the amendment related to the language test, the age range for this test will be also reduced to 18-54 years old.

There are three ways to prepare for the test:

o  sign up for special courses designed for people interested in applying for the citizenship

o  study the official guide for the citizenship test from the government's website: Discover Canada: The Rights and Responsibilities of Citizenship

o  do practice tests online, for example here: Practice Citizenship Tests

7.     Criminal record - people who have committed a crime in or outside Canada and are in prison are not eligible to apply. You cannot be convicted in the four years before the date of application for citizenship.

Revocation provision - since I wrote about the proposed changes by the Liberal government related to the requirements, I thought that it would be a good idea to mention about this provision as well since it's quite important. In mid 2015, the government (Conservatives who were replaced by Liberals a few months later) made a change to the Citizenship Act known as the "Bill C-24". This change allowed the government to revoke Canadian citizenship from dual citizens who were engaged in terrorism, high treason and spying offences. They also made it more difficult for permanent residents to get the citizenship. They increased the age range for requirements #2,3,5,6 from 18-54 to 14-64 years. In addition they removed the provision that allowed permanent residents to count some of the time before they become residents towards the Physical Residency requirement from 3 of 4 to 4 of 6 years. During the elections last year, Liberals promised to unveil the Bill C-24 and so everything would be almost the same as it was before implementing the bill. Whether this move will bring any good to this country we will find out in the future, but to my way of thinking people who have been engaged in terrorism and similar stuff should loose their rights so they don't do it again. On the other hand, making it less restrictive for permanent residents to apply is a good idea in my opinion.

What else is good to know about the citizenship in Canada:

• Even if you married a Canadian citizen you still have to meet all the requirements listed above. If your spouse is a citizen, he or she can sponsor you to become a permanent resident and then you have to go through the whole process as all the other people. There is no special treatment for these applicants.
• If you are Canadian but your children were born outside Canada, they may be citizens of Canada if they were born before April 2009. If you children were born after 2009 or if your situation is complex then you have to check the special rules here: Special Rules
• Canada allows to take foreign citizenship and keep the Canadian one. Such people become dual citizens. However some countries do not allow this so it's always a good idea to check with your home country before you apply for Canadian citizenship.
•  As of now, the application for citizenship costs $530 for adults and $100 for minor children.
• Current processing time is 12 months. If you are reading this post a few months after I published it, the processing time may be different. You can check it here: Processing Times

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