Question Period Note: IN-PERSON AND VIDEO OATH CEREMONIES

Status update on in-person and video oath ceremonies.

• Since April 2020, IRCC has been conducting video oath ceremonies as a means of adapting to the global pandemic while continuing to offer services to IRCC clients.
• Video oath ceremonies have helped improve client service by allowing citizenship processing to continue despite in-person service disruptions, and by providing flexibility to clients as they no longer need to travel to their citizenship ceremony.
• Between April 2022 and October 2022, on average close to 31,000 applicants took the oath of citizenship each month, exceeding by far pre-COVID-19 volumes.
• In the month of October 2022 alone, over 32,000 applicants became new citizens, which includes adoptions, resumptions and grant applicants who may not require a ceremony.
If pressed
• While in-person ceremonies are now taking place, video oath ceremonies will continue to be the primary method of service delivery to ensure efficient, timely and flexible client service.
• Between April 2022 and October 2022, 72 in-person ceremonies have taken place.

IRCC launched virtual ceremonies in April 2020, with proper safeguards in place to maintain clients’ privacy and ensure security.
In line with its modernization agenda, IRCC continues to conduct ceremonies virtually, bringing the Citizenship Program closer to a complete digital processing model; some limited in-person events continue to be scheduled in certain offices, for example for clients requiring accommodation and for selected special events.
Some in-person citizenship ceremonies are now taking place.

Number of ceremonies (in-person and virtual) by Month, April 1st - October 31th, 2022
Month/2022 # of In-Person Ceremonies # of Virtual Ceremonies
April 0 309
May 0 319
June 0 318
July 5 276
August 11 296
September 14 245
October 42 229
Total 72 1,992
Average # of ceremonies per month in 2022
(total \ 7 (# of months) 10 285

Notes:
-Status of ceremonies equals "Completed, Scheduled, In-Progress"
-Each week, data is compiled and is manually validated by each office
-Data are preliminary, subject to change, and may not match official IRCC reporting.
Source: IRCC CPPB Branch, Manually Tracked data as of November 7, 2022

Please note:
DPU is relying on the quality assurance of CPPB for data accuracy.

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