March 28, 2014—Mississauga, ON— Approximately 2,400 new citizens from more than 125 countries were welcomed to Canada at citizenship ceremonies held by Citizenship and Immigration Canada’s Mississauga office over the past two weeks.
Ceremonies like these demonstrate how the government is working to make the citizenship program more efficient, helping more people realize sooner their dream of becoming Canadian. The government’s proposed changes in Bill C-24, the Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act,will also reduce wait times by streamlining the decision-making process for citizenship. It is expected that these changes will bring the average processing time for citizenship applications down to under one year and that the current backlog will be reduced by more than 80 percent by 2015-2016.
Alexis Pavlich
Minister’s Office
Citizenship and Immigration Canada
613-954-1064
Media Relations
Communications Branch
Citizenship and Immigration Canada
613-952-1650
CIC-Media-Relations@cic.gc.ca
Building a stronger Canada: Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) strengthens Canada’s economic, social and cultural prosperity, helping ensure Canadian safety and security while managing one of the largest and most generous immigration programs in the world.