Question Period Note: VIRTUAL CITIZENSHIP CEREMONIES

Implementation and status update of virtual citizenship ceremonies.

• The safety and well-being of both clients and staff is, and will remain our highest priority.

• On March 14, 2020, in response to the evolving COVID-19 situation, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada cancelled all in-person citizenship ceremonies.

• The Department began holding virtual citizenship ceremonies on April 1, 2020, starting with urgent cases, and candidates are now being scheduled in the order they appear in the inventory.

• Since April, IRCC has held over 7,000 virtual citizenship ceremonies, with almost 25,000 people having taken the oath of citizenship.

• The Citizenship grant application processing system is paper-based and relies on manual data entry. Citizenship ceremonies are typically held in person in group events throughout the country.

• The first virtual ceremony was held on April 1, 2020, for a university professor in Winnipeg. The professor was approved for federal funding to conduct COVID-19 research, and it was determined that Canadian citizenship and the ability to travel on a Canadian passport to research sites outside of Canada would facilitate this work. The ceremony took place with the use of Zoom web conferencing platform.

• Initial ceremonies for clients which signaled an urgent need were prioritized based on the following criteria:
 need for citizenship status for employment purposes and education purposes;
 essential travel; or
 compassionate grounds (for example: health reasons).

The Department is currently scheduling clients from its existing inventory.

Clients are being notified via a notice to appear and instructions about participating in a citizenship ceremony virtually.

• The Department instituted a phased ramp-up strategy over the last few months which increased the number of virtual ceremonies being conducted each week.

• High profile, multi-participant virtual ceremonies took place on World Refugee Day (June 20) and Canada Day. Minister Mendicino administered the Oath of citizenship at both of these ceremonies.

• The Department has since implemented a multi-participant approach for all ceremonies in a virtual setting while maintaining each clients’ privacy and sufficient security safeguards to prevent IT threats. This approach has allowed the Department to have approximately 2,500 – 3,000 people taking the oath per week.

• Beginning in October, the Department will pilot a number of in-person citizenship services at the Vancouver office. Citizenship knowledge re-testing and hearings are being tested with a limited number of citizenship clients and results will inform procedures for service resumption in other offices.

• Before the beginning of the pandemic, there were approximately 210,900 applications in the citizenship grant inventory, with approximately 42,000 individuals waiting for a citizenship ceremony. Given the department continues to receive citizenship grants applications while operating on a largely reduced capacity, the application inventory is likely to grow significantly due to COVID-19.

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