April 2025 - Citizenship Applications
- Thread starter TheInterceptor
- Start date
If you talking about fingerprints it has to be done in Canada only.
https://rcmp.ca/en/criminal-records...rprinting-companies-accredited-rcmp#wb-auto-2
Only Canadian ones are allowed now.
Might be worth reaching out to Red Seal Notary.
They can get your fingerprints submitted from your local police in your country to RCMP according to https://www.redsealnotary.com/services/rcmp-fingerprints-outside-canada/ (and they explicitly list India as one of the countries that they have done it from before).
And their sample app, https://www.redsealnotary.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/InformedConsent_Travel-and-Immigration.pdf implies that they support Canadian citizenship applications - though it's possible that this is old or inaccurate (as they're offering a generic FP service for e.g. employer background checks, supporting US visa applications, Canadian visa and PR apps from overseas, and so on).
Interview Requested on Tracker: November 18, 2025.
Interview Scheduled on Tracker: November 26, 2025.
New Interview Scheduled on Tracker: December 08, 2025 (due to travelling).
Language changed to Completed on Tracker: December 11, 2025.
Prohibitions changed to Completed on Tracker: December 11, 2025.
Interview Scheduled on Tracker: November 26, 2025.
New Interview Scheduled on Tracker: December 08, 2025 (due to travelling).
Language changed to Completed on Tracker: December 11, 2025.
Prohibitions changed to Completed on Tracker: December 11, 2025.
Sounds like an IRCC problem. I'm also Australian and the concept of an online citizenship disgusts us, yet we facilitate in-person ceremonies efficiently and with equal processing times for citizenship applications as Canada. There's lamington cake, biscuits and tea because its an Australian thing to do. And taking photos with new follow citizens.
Why would you not want to?
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I personally would prefer if they would switch to making in-person more the 'standard', primarily by making more slots available. Have people ask if they'd prefer online, and indicate if there's a reason.
That said, there's lots of communities - by distance - where the infrastructure and people are insufficient to hold regular ceremonies, and I'd understand objections to making people wait months.
I'd far, far prefer that government come up with some solution - have them sworn in at local municipality, RCMP station, local police, something. Given that they could have IRCC people online by video for important bits, it just needs a mild 'deputising' of somebody trustworthy locally, and surely we can make that happen without too much difficulty. (I'd imagine there's a lot of people who'd be happy to help from time to time, for nominal pay. We organise election without too much difficulty after all.
But I wouldn't want ctizienship held up for PRs who are ready for months and that's the primary issue (as I understand) that they had before. The pandemic changed things in terms of forcing government and others to decide when things needed to be in person, and when they didn't, and when we could accept eg video for things that used to require online.
Now it's time for the pendulum to swing back and for us to prioritize human connection and presence. That doesn't mean we have to extirpate use of technology - but we could supplement it.
So I did some digging into this and I think you've got a good point here.
If you look at https://immi.homeaffairs.gov.au/cit...processing-times/citizenship-processing-times it says "Australian citizenship by conferral (general eligibility" "From date of application to ceremony" "75% of applications are processed in:" "12 months" "90% of applications are processed in:" "14 months"
Meanwhile, if you check out https://www.canada.ca/en/immigratio...vices/application/check-processing-times.html the Canadian version says the processing time is about 13 months for a grant of citizenship today. It's a bit harder to compare since IRCC doesn't publish the breakdown in percentages (25%/50%/75%/90%) the way Australia's Home Affairs does. But as per https://ircc.canada.ca/english/helpcentre/answer.asp?qnum=068&top=3 this 13 month represents 80% of applications.
However, from the same page from Home Affairs,
"This table shows how many applications we had on hand on 30 November 2025." "Australian citizenship by conferral (general eligibility" "95,912"
And from IRCC's page,
"Total number of people waiting for a decision" "About 297,000 people waiting"
So basically, Australia's processing time is similar to Canada's for citizenship, even though it only deals with a total caseload that is one third the size...
Earlier I wrote that if no one did online citizenship and it was all in-person then the wait times would go up by roughly a factor of 8. So on the one hand this does indeed suggest that IRCC has a problem with efficiently of in-person ceremonies for citizenship applications - with only 3x volume the wait time shouldn't become 8x as long.
But it also suggests that Canada (IRCC) would not only have to be equally as good as Australia, but 3x better to avoid having longer wait times than Australia. As an Aussie in Canada, I think you'd have a better feel than I would on how realistic this would be...
It's interesting that you bring this point up. If you look at Australia, they attempt to give ceremony wait times separately - see https://immi.homeaffairs.gov.au/citizenship/citizenship-processing-times/ceremony-wait-times - but for that you need to know which local council (which seems to more or less be coterminous with the city/town/village that the person lives in) will be performing the ceremony.
In other words, it seems to me that Australia is able to do in-person ceremonies faster than Canada, and also Australia seems to have the local municipality handle the actual ceremony while Canada centralizes it through IRCC.
I think you just answered your own question.
I'm a bit photo shy, but on the other hand you can always count on me to show up when there's free food!
Ummmm.... while I applaud attempts to compare one jurisdiction (esp one such as Australia) to another (Canada) in this instance, you have to be careful to compare like to like. Waiting lists are not annual throughput / applications, is one basic example. Okay, it's not always easy to find the same numbers, but at least attempt to do so (and note where the numbers don't match).
But the part I've bolded above is, ahem, a thought crime: you've compared the 8X number that (I'm pretty sure) you made up - or at least is highly speculative - to the 'volume' number (that has its own issues). [Don't take offence at thought crime, I say that in good humour]
That said, I overall agree with your point - esp on the centralization part, there's no reason IRCC couldn't leverage much more resources locally (who would for the most part love to participate!). As far as I can tell by law (partly by memory i.e. I haven't checked the text of the alw), the only part that's critical is the citizenship judge, which I'm sure could be finessed somehow - as they've done by going virtual.
Passport applied for: Dec 2; passport picked up: Dec 16. All the best to those waiting.
I hope you are able to see that I replied to my last post from Nov 28 or able to see my signature, which shows the full timeline.
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