Citizenship certificate: Paper vs Electronic (e-certificate)

[WestOntario]

Hi everyone,

I’m applying online for Canadian citizenship and reached this question:

“Choose the type of citizenship certificate you want to receive: Paper or Electronic (e-certificate).”
Could someone please explain the main difference between the paper certificate and the electronic certificate?

Also, which one is usually faster to receive, and are there any possible issues or disadvantages with either option?

Thank you.

 

[armoured]

Hi everyone,

I’m applying online for Canadian citizenship and reached this question:

“Choose the type of citizenship certificate you want to receive: Paper or Electronic (e-certificate).”
Could someone please explain the main difference between the paper certificate and the electronic certificate?

Also, which one is usually faster to receive, and are there any possible issues or disadvantages with either option?

Thank you.

e-certificate is faster in event you do an online citizenship ceremony, which is most these days. They have to mail you the physical one. (If you do a real live in-person ceremony, you'll be given the paper one by default).

There's no major advantage or disadvantage to either - advantage of the physical paper one is it's nice and pretty (and though they say you may have to show 'original', in fact they have a bar code which means you can send a scan for everything anyway - so in effect the paper is an electronic one, too, if you scan it).

Electronic: you don't get the nice paper version. You can easily take it to a printer and get them to print up a pretty one for you, any size at all, frame it or make wallpaper out of it if you like. But if you're like most, you won't get around to it. Advantage to the electronic is no-one will ever say you didn't scan it well enough.

Frankly they should just combine them - send you the electronic and then a printed version by mail later. They really are basically identical, down to the barcode.