Graphic – Canada citizenship application decision-making process

This graphic shows changes to Canada citizenship application decision-making process.

Canadian citizenship application

Canada citizenship application

Canada’s previous decision-making model for citizenship applications was a three-step process: an application went from a citizenship officer to a citizenship judge and then went back to a citizenship officer. Under this model, we had a large backlog and more applications than we could process in a timely manner. As of February 2014, the average processing time was 24-36 months and the backlog was more than 320,000 applicants.

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Source: Graphic – Canada’s citizenship decision-making process – June 2015 – Canada News Centre

The following is the opinion of a Burnaby immigration consultant working for RS Immigration Corporation that has chosen to remain anonymous. It may or may not reflect the opinion(s) of RS Immigration Corporation.

The new Canadian citizenship application model uses a Citizenship judge only when a Citizenship officer is not satisfied with the application. This new application model will employ more Canadian Citizenship Officers and less Canadian Citizenship judges.

Citizenship is NOT automatically granted if:

  1. if you marry a Canadian citizen
  2. adopted by a Canadian citizen
  3. have lived in Canada as a permanent resident for many years

All these require a Canadian citizenship application.