Tuesday, June 02, 2009

Canadian Citizenship

I was reading a great blog post from Zhu on Do You Speak Canadian ...Eh?, which rang an alarm in my head to check on my own Canadian Citizenship wait. So I headed over to do the calculation since my last time and found out that I'm exactly eligible to apply this week! Shocking as it has come up so fast.

You see this Friday (June 5th) Makes 2 years since I've been a landed immigrant of Canada. It's such an easy date to remember since my father's birthday is the day before.

Now I've gotta hurry up and get the citizenship application filled out, paid up, photos taken and sent out! Apparently they have made the process a bit easier to understand for calculation purposes.

What is the residence requirement?
To be eligible for Canadian citizenship, you must have lived in Canada for at least three years (1,095 days) out of the four years (1,460 days) preceding your application. Please note that you cannot meet the residence requirements for citizenship without a minimum of two (2) years as a permanent resident.

When calculating your time in Canada:

  • only the four (4) years preceding the date of your application are taken into account;
  • each day you lived in Canada before you became a permanent resident counts as half a day;
  • each day you lived in Canada after you became a permanent resident counts as one day;
  • absences from Canada may have an impact on your residence. Only a citizenship judge can determine if you meet the residence requirements with fewer than 1,095 days of physical presence.

Now I need to start checking the backlog to see how long it will take (probably a good 2 years) waiting....

12 comments:

  1. Is there an on-line calculator to do that math?

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  2. Yes of course...

    http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/citizenship/rules/index.asp

    and

    http://services3.cic.gc.ca/rescalc/startBasicCalc.do

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  3. Yay! How times flies, eh? Let's hope it doesn't take two years, but I know how all the bureaucracy works. :-(

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  4. Anonymous1:42 PM

    Congratulations! Glad my post was useful ;-)

    Was it difficult for you to calculate the days of presence in Canada? I hated subtracting the days I was away etc.

    Here is my original applying for citizenship post:

    http://correresmidestino.com/please-no-smiling/

    For the processing times, if it can help, I applied in Aug. 2008 and only got the aknowledgement letter in January 09. The letter is dated of November 08, my friend was the same... not sure why we receive them so long after.

    Anyway, apparently in Ottawa the average processing time is about 12 to 16 months. I heard it's busier in Toronto (more immigrants?!) and Montreal.

    Best of luck!

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  5. Great info! Thanks Zhu

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  6. I actually needed to know this since Canada is a very real possiblity for us... thanks for the post.

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  7. Anonymous5:38 AM

    Canada is such a nice place to live and at least it has a shorter span of years to be a citizen than in Norway unless if you're married to one then it will be around 3-4 years.

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  8. Congratulations and best of Luck

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  9. Just a two year wait after the application...you're lucky, sometimes in France it takes ten years.

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  10. Wow I never knew this. Thanks for the info

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  11. Congratulation Expat. When I applied seven years ago, it took ten months. I have no idea why it takes so long, it is crazy really. Since I have lived here for many years it was really tricky remembering the days I had been out of the country in the past however many years. I forget exactly. It is made so much more difficult by the fact that you don't get your passport stamped anymore.

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  12. rules and regulations, I say no more but cross my fingers

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