May 1, 2014—Calgary, AB—Calgary welcomed 1,164 new Canadians from more than 100 countries over the past month—more than four times the number of people who became Canadian citizens in Calgary in April last year when 284 new citizens were sworn in.
The high number of new citizens welcomed this month in Calgary demonstrates how the government is working to make the citizenship program more efficient, helping more people realize their dream of becoming Canadian sooner. The government’s proposed changes in Bill C-24, the Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act, will further reduce wait times by streamlining the decision-making process for Canadian citizenship. It is expected that those 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.