A new Canadian law that will dramatically reduce citizenship application processing times by the end of 2015 came into effect on August 1, Waiting times for hopeful Canadians will drop from two to three years to less than a year, meaning people won’t have to wait too long to get their hands on some maple syrup and ice hockey sticks.
According to the Standard, Peter Kam, the managing director of Worldwide Consultant (though it’s rather unclear what they consult about), estimates that the number of Hongkongers who apply for Canadian citizenship will increase by up to 40% in the next year, without citing any specific reasons.
The law, called the Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act, will help the government make a dent in their massive backlog of 320,000 applications, but that also means the law won’t make much of an effect on new applications until the 2015-2016 fiscal year.
Now, instead of judges having to approve or reject citizen applications, judges will only look at applications that a citizen officer has already deemed to fall short of citizenship requirements.
