Timeline - Calgary Office

wuzup calgarians? any test dates for december2008 or jan2009 yet?

regards

ram102 wrote: Any new citizenship ceremonies coming up? Has anybody received their invitation?

Here is my timeline:
Applied September 2008
Test:December 2009
Oath:March 2010

Finally, its all over.  I will be mailing my passport application soon. I guess patience is the key.

Has anybody from February's tests received their invitation yet?

Hey Alamo,

Yes, it is a done deal now. Well here is my experience:

First you get into a line to do a check-in, they ask for your PR card, the invitation with the second page signed. They keep the PR card and then you go to the next table in which you formally sign on a document that they keep for their records.


At this point I asked the clerk why is that the waiting time is longer in Calgary than in any other city, she said that there are some other cities in which the waiting times are similar, but she didn't want to get into the details of why is it that the waiting times are such in Calgary. Given the circumsptances and the formal setting of the ceremony I decided to play it safe and avoided pushing any further for a more concrete answer :)

Then you pass to the room where you just sit and wait until the last applicant has finished the check-in part described above.

Then the clerk (who happened to be the same person who administered the citizenship test) gives a brief explanation of how the ceremony is going to be conducted. At the clerk's queue everybody rises, the judge enters the room and the ceremony begins.

The judge gave a brief but very good and heart-felt speech and then they present the applicants with the certificates and their citizenship cards: They call all applicants, one by one (they call entire families together), to go to the front and receive the certificate and card from the judge.

The clerk advised that because "of the flu season" the judge wouldn't be shaking hands with the applicants at this time, I though this was kind of rude but ... you know ... I guess I was too grateful of being there to be concerned about that.

At the end the judge is available for a photo session with those who want a picture with the judge with the Canadian provinces' flags in the background.

The citizenship card is a very simple card basically made out of paper, the card has been laminated by cic. I am no expert, but to me it looked like it has no security features at all. I imagine that this is because at this point, once they have granted you the citizenship they have more than enough biometrical information about you that they wouldn't have a problem identifying you, so the card is barely to display you citizenship certificate number.

I noticed that the date on the citizenship card is the date in which your file "was transferred to the Calgary office". So it looked to me like they have already made the desicion in vergreville (because the printed the card already).

Then after the ceremony was finished, I came back to the office and typed my certificate number in my passport application (the passport application won't print until is fully completed) then I ran back to the harry-hays building and submitted my application, and finally,  I will have my passport tomorrow morning!

Alamo wrote: ram102 wrote: Has anybody from February's tests received their invitation yet?   Hey ram102,   I guess I can say congratulations for your new Canadian status. You should be happy and relieved. I wish you the best. So can you share your experience and did you get any chance to chat with anyone of the officials to get news about the long timeline they are providing to the residents of Calgary ?   Thanks in advance