Waiting for the Oath - Surrey Office

[Doctoré850]

Hi all,
Any one has an idea on the wait times between taking the test and the oath ceremony? I took the test last weekend on March 19th.

 

[mrbreizh]

For my case, 5 month and a half and still waiting.

 

[Macarad]

Hi,

Does anyone have information of how they prioritize people for scheduling? Do they look mostly at 1) Application date 2) Test date 3) DM date??

(maybe spinning a giant wheel to randomly choose applicants? so many of their choices seem to be made that way...)

in any case I'm way overdue if it's any of the first two options, but I have read different posts on what the IRCC look at when scheduling. Not sure what to believe.

My file got (unfortunately) transferred to Surrey after moving from MTL, and it has been the worst experience I could have expected (overall just terrible experience with IRCC for my applicaiton). I am part of the group of applicants whose files got pushed back as far as possible (commitment to process newer applications faster is more important than clearing the backlog for IRCC, it would seem), and I have had no success contacting Surrey office.

Any information would be appreciated.

Thanks!

 

[mrbreizh]

Hi Macarad, glad to see you finally got your DM.
Never had a response from Surrey Office despite several tries of contacting them.
I had my DM 2 weeks before you.
I hope the spinning wheel will be at our advantage in the next few days/weeks/months !

 

[Bains87]

Hi,

Does anyone have information of how they prioritize people for scheduling? Do they look mostly at 1) Application date 2) Test date 3) DM date??

(maybe spinning a giant wheel to randomly choose applicants? so many of their choices seem to be made that way...)

in any case I'm way overdue if it's any of the first two options, but I have read different posts on what the IRCC look at when scheduling. Not sure what to believe.

My file got (unfortunately) transferred to Surrey after moving from MTL, and it has been the worst experience I could have expected (overall just terrible experience with IRCC for my applicaiton). I am part of the group of applicants whose files got pushed back as far as possible (commitment to process newer applications faster is more important than clearing the backlog for IRCC, it would seem), and I have had no success contacting Surrey office.

Any information would be appreciated.

Thanks!

They have started to completely ignore 2019 applicants, I haven't seen much activity at all with 2019 applicants, unless someone gets approved for urgent processing.

 

[Bains87]

https://toronto.citynews.ca/video/2022/03/24/citizenship-delays-leaving-permanent-residents-in-limbo/

 

[Macarad]

They have started to completely ignore 2019 applicants, I haven't seen much activity at all with 2019 applicants, unless someone gets approved for urgent processing.

I know... they stopped caring about us a long time ago.
I was supposed to be in the first batch for taking the citizenship test online (IRCC said publicly they would start with applicants whose tests had been cancelled due to the pandemic), but of course they went with newer applicants first. We are just stats to them and they prioritize files to fit their performance metrics. There were other issues with the processing of my file that you wouldn't believe, but well....
It has been incredibly disheartening =(
I have no idea when my background check expires. My guess is that they renewed it sometime in 2021, but I do not know when. I hope I get invitation before that.

 

[notsniw817]

any new update IRCC Surrey ?IrCc Vancouver is sending oath who got DM lately

 

[mrbreizh]

No updates. Celebrating 1 month of DM tomorrow.

 

[notsniw817]

3 months tomorrow from DM no news yet

 

[mrbreizh]

Oh no … what could take so long ?
When did you apply ?

 

[Macarad]

Not much on my end....
I wrote an email to DNCITSRYCEREMONY@cic.gc.ca asking about my file. I had received a very weird request for travel evidence in Oct2021 and for 5 months i heard nothing, so when I got DM a few weeks ago, I honestly was not sure if the application had been approved or not. As such, I wrote them an email explaining why I was worried and begged them to at least tell me if I was in line for oath. They responded a few days later confirming that I am just waiting for an oath ceremony and that it could be up to 6 months.

I have looked very closely at the data from the 2020 and 2021 trackers (nation wide). Around 25% of the people who had an oath scheduled in the first half of April received an invite within 5 days of DM, and 75% within 53 days (with the average being around 43 days).

I really do not know how or why they choose some applicants first for oaths. Maybe it's based on expiry date of some checks (Background, prohibitions, fingerprints)? Maybe that or they throw dice or something to decide, or they straight out favour some applications based on the preferences and attitudes of processing agents.

In any case, it's not good how wildly different it is between applicants. I believe that it should simply be based on application date, simple as that (particularly when you have many people who sent their files more than 2 years ago).

I also do not know to what extent Vancouver and Surrey office have different processing capacities. Now that ceremonies are virtual, do they schedule applicants together? No idea. It is all a mystery with this agency.

We know that in late Jan 2022, IRCC stated that around 60,000 people were waiting for oath ceremonies, and that they were inviting 3500-5000 people weekly. I have not seen more recent data that states if they have increased capacity for oaths or not. Their stated objective moving forward was to schedule oaths within 4 months of DM (no idea when they are supposed to meet this objective).

Anyway, those are my thoughts of the week.

Best wishes to everyone

 

[notsniw817]

my background was completed last March 10,2021 but no news yet.

 

[mrbreizh]

Hi Macarad,

Thank you for taking a close look at the DM to Oath waiting time, its interesting.
My coworker was with Vancouver office.
He applied after me, but already passed his oath.
He told me there were applicants from Vancouver and Surrey office attending to the same ceremony.

 

[Macarad]

my background was completed last March 10,2021 but no news yet.

I see... =/
i might be wrong, but it might need to be updated (I've heard applicants say that all checks need to be valid when you take your oath...)... but we'll see, I guess.

Hi Macarad,

Thank you for taking a close look at the DM to Oath waiting time, its interesting.
My coworker was with Vancouver office.
He applied after me, but already passed his oath.
He told me there were applicants from Vancouver and Surrey office attending to the same ceremony.

Oh, that's good to know that ceremonies have applicants from both offices. Hopefully that reduces the differences in operational capacities between the two. I honestly do not know why my file got transferred to Surrey when I actually live in Vancouver, but well.... add it to the list of random crap that IRCC does.