Question Period Note: Virtual Citizenship Ceremonies

Implementation and status update of virtual citizenship ceremonies.

• Global migration has been upended by the pandemic, yet we’ve taken quick action and come a long way since the onset of the pandemic.

• As the situation has evolved we’ve provided additional resources where they are needed most, streamlined our processes and ramped systems back up.

• After a period of near total shutdown, we began holding citizenship ceremonies online in April 2020. As of March 2021 more than 57,000 clients have taken the Oath of citizenship in more than 9,400 ceremonies, using a virtual platform.

• IRCC continues to use this innovative approach to ensure approved candidates for citizenship become citizens in as timely a manner as possible.

• Before the pandemic, citizenship ceremonies were typically held in person, in group events throughout the country.

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

• The first virtual ceremony was held on April 1, 2020. The ceremony took place with the use of Zoom web conferencing platform.

• The launch of virtual ceremonies has allowed as many as 2,500 – 3,000 people to take the oath per week, depending on the inventory of ceremony-ready clients. Proper safeguards have been put in place to maintain clients’ privacy and minimize IT threats.

• The multi-participant approach for virtual ceremonies has allowed the Department to completely deplete in Fall 2020, its backlog of ceremony-ready clients, which was approximately 43,000 clients back at the beginning of the pandemic (March 2020).

• In 2021, Minister Mendicino administered the Oath at two high profile ceremonies (February 12 and 26) to commemorate Black History Month – the ceremony of Feb. 26 was live-streamed globally. On April 28, the Minister administered the oath at a ceremony to launch Asian Heritage Month. High profile ceremonies are planned for Citizenship Week (May 17-23), and Canada Day. The ceremony to launch Citizenship Week (May 17) will be live-streamed and will include Col. Chris Hadfield as a special guest.

• On November 26, 2020, the online citizenship knowledge test was launched. Over time, as more clients complete the citizenship knowledge test, and upon meeting the other requirements for citizenship, become ceremony ready, the frequency of video oath ceremonies will ramp-up again over the course of 2021.

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