[Canada] Canadian Politics Redux

[crazy canuck]

Edit, the other clue to what was happening is that when the legislation was first passed it was estimated that a little over 100,000 people worldwide would be eligible under the new definition.  However, they quickly had a little over 80,000 applicants.

Where is that from? All I see in the CBC article is that in 2024 there were 56,235 pending citizenship certificates and there were 82,475 in 2025. Gone up a lot surely.

You are miss reading the article. There were no applications in 2024 because the legislation just came in force. The 80,000 figure is the amount of pending applications.

Given the fact that they'll head legislation just came into force and the estimate was that a little over 100,000 people worldwide would be affected, there is an obvious inference to be drawn that more than 100,000 people thought they were going to be eligible. And obviously a big factor and that is the way in which eligibility was being reported in the media and as discussed here was terribly mistaken.

[garbon]

Edit, the other clue to what was happening is that when the legislation was first passed it was estimated that a little over 100,000 people worldwide would be eligible under the new definition.  However, they quickly had a little over 80,000 applicants.

Where is that from? All I see in the CBC article is that in 2024 there were 56,235 pending citizenship certificates and there were 82,475 in 2025. Gone up a lot surely.

You are miss reading the article. There were no applications in 2024 because the legislation just came in force. The 80,000 figure is the amount of pending applications.

Given the fact that they'll head legislation just came into force and the estimate was that a little over 100,000 people worldwide would be affected, there is an obvious inference to be drawn that more than 100,000 people thought they were going to be eligible. And obviously a big factor and that is the way in which eligibility was being reported in the media and as discussed here was terribly mistaken.

So what is that 56k?

[crazy canuck]

Edit, the other clue to what was happening is that when the legislation was first passed it was estimated that a little over 100,000 people worldwide would be eligible under the new definition.  However, they quickly had a little over 80,000 applicants.

Where is that from? All I see in the CBC article is that in 2024 there were 56,235 pending citizenship certificates and there were 82,475 in 2025. Gone up a lot surely.

You are miss reading the article. There were no applications in 2024 because the legislation just came in force. The 80,000 figure is the amount of pending applications.

Given the fact that they'll head legislation just came into force and the estimate was that a little over 100,000 people worldwide would be affected, there is an obvious inference to be drawn that more than 100,000 people thought they were going to be eligible. And obviously a big factor and that is the way in which eligibility was being reported in the media and as discussed here was terribly mistaken.

So what is that 56k?

The article says that was the backlog of applications as of April.

Which is the number that is also consistent with my hypothesis.

[viper37]

What that says to me is a lot of people were buying into the hype that was being reported about the restrictions on citizenship being very loose.  And now I'm just speculating, but I'm wondering whether some lower level civil servants who are processing the applications also didn't have a good idea of what the new legislation meant and how restrictive it was it still was.

Obviously.  But before delivering a citizenship certificate to someone, that office sould have triple checked their new law.

[viper37]

I wonder why. Did they start agreeing with CCs argument? Of course, they aren't saying anything.

Somebody must have actually read the legislation rather than the Press clippings

Since they issued the citizenship certificate and only now are revoking them, that invalidates your theory.

How?

That "somebody" actually read the legislation rather than press clippings.

The government realized they made a mistake and ordered their bureaucrats to tighten the rules.

They could have done it first.  The proper procedure after all, in any office, would be to get a legal interpretation of the new law before issuing citizenship certificates to every American asking them*.

Now, the Minister of Immigration realizes the fuck up because the newspapers keep talking about it, Carney is embarassed, he yells at him/her, they tell their office to tighten the rules as they do for all immigrants.

They keep expelling people, they can't exactly grant citizenship to 100 000 people and allow them to come live in the country at will.

*slight exageration here.  But you get the drift.

[viper37]

As an aside, is a certificate the same as having citizenship? And if it is can citizenship be revoked? I mean just in general.

https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/services/canadian-citizenship/proof-citizenship/about.html
https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/services/canadian-citizenship/proof-citizenship/eligibility.html

it proves you are Canadian, but it's not a travel document.

[crazy canuck]

What that says to me is a lot of people were buying into the hype that was being reported about the restrictions on citizenship being very loose.  And now I'm just speculating, but I'm wondering whether some lower level civil servants who are processing the applications also didn't have a good idea of what the new legislation meant and how restrictive it was it still was.

Obviously.  But before delivering a citizenship certificate to someone, that office sould have triple checked their new law.

Agreed

[crazy canuck]

I wonder why. Did they start agreeing with CCs argument? Of course, they aren't saying anything.

Somebody must have actually read the legislation rather than the Press clippings

Since they issued the citizenship certificate and only now are revoking them, that invalidates your theory.

How?

That "somebody" actually read the legislation rather than press clippings.

The government realized they made a mistake and ordered their bureaucrats to tighten the rules.

They could have done it first.  The proper procedure after all, in any office, would be to get a legal interpretation of the new law before issuing citizenship certificates to every American asking them*.

Now, the Minister of Immigration realizes the fuck up because the newspapers keep talking about it, Carney is embarassed, he yells at him/her, they tell their office to tighten the rules as they do for all immigrants.

They keep expelling people, they can't exactly grant citizenship to 100 000 people and allow them to come live in the country at will.

*slight exageration here.  But you get the drift.

No, I think the simpler answer is they were flooded with applications because of reports that it was easy to get, and mistakes were made processing all those unexpected applications.

Remember, they were expecting that a maximum of 100,000 people or so would be affected worldwide and they saw close to that number of applications.