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Citizenship test: Collective action required, or expect endless delays, years. Example of the effective lobbyng of people awaiting spousal sponsorship

GokulGuruprasad

Hero Member
Oct 26, 2015
605
246
Toronto, ON
Category........
FSW
Here is an idea.

The Director General in charge of online tests is Marie Josee Dorion (https://www.linkedin.com/in/dorion-marie-josee-87460692/?originalSubdomain=ca)
Her working email address is : marie-josee.dorion@cic.gc.ca

Would it be a good idea for us to write to her requesting for more resources to be deployed into this? As of now, we are look like numbers and statistics to her, so she is not under any pressure to ramp-up processing.
I'm not really in favour of spamming someone's email account. So, we'd have to look at other ways of bringing people to notice our plight.
 

novascotia27

Hero Member
Jan 4, 2016
491
280
Here is an idea.

The Director General in charge of online tests is Marie Josee Dorion (https://www.linkedin.com/in/dorion-marie-josee-87460692/?originalSubdomain=ca)
Her working email address is : marie-josee.dorion@cic.gc.ca

Would it be a good idea for us to write to her requesting for more resources to be deployed into this? As of now, we are look like numbers and statistics to her, so she is not under any pressure to ramp-up processing.
I don’t think it’s a good idea. I wouldn’t do it
 

rajkamalmohanram

VIP Member
Apr 29, 2015
15,802
5,769
I recommend avoid sharing this document publicly as it looks a lot of details were left not redacted.
Huh? There is nothing wrong in sharing this document publicly. I obtained this document by filing an ATIP request. Whatever is shown in that document is eligible for public viewing.

If everything were to be redacted, then what's the using of getting these documents anyways? Whatever needs to be redacted was redacted. Whatever remains is completely safe to be shared publicly.
 

thesonicbro

Hero Member
Jul 24, 2016
212
81
Huh? There is nothing wrong in sharing this document publicly. I obtained this document by filing an ATIP request. Whatever is shown in that document is eligible for public viewing.

If everything were to be redacted, then what's the using of getting these documents anyways? Whatever needs to be redacted was redacted. Whatever remains is completely safe to be shared publicly.
Exposing internal email addresses and URLs certainly is not a safe measure to display let alone in an opened shared document online.

There are times where we would need to determine right and wrong whether it is for the sake of protecting front end employees or the system in general.

I'm pretty sure there are other places to discuss this type of subjects, but having such data exposed might not be ideal for an ordinary users to have access to.
 

TempResident

Star Member
May 16, 2016
182
95
Germany/Argentina
Exposing internal email addresses and URLs certainly is not a safe measure to display let alone in an opened shared document online.

There are times where we would need to determine right and wrong whether it is for the sake of protecting front end employees or the system in general.

I'm pretty sure there are other places to discuss this type of subjects, but having such data exposed might not be ideal for an ordinary users to have access to.
Maybe you are not familiar with the ATIP, and I quote below for your reference:

"Any Canadian citizen, permanent resident or individual present in Canada has the right to access their personal information held by government institutions that are subject to the Privacy Act."

Make an access to information or personal information request

@rajkamalmohanram
is only exercising his/her right to know what is going on with the Citizenship program. Just like you or everyone else going through this process. if emails and names were left unredacted, that's because it is public information.
 

MrChazz

Hero Member
May 4, 2021
247
225
Exposing internal email addresses and URLs certainly is not a safe measure to display let alone in an opened shared document online.

There are times where we would need to determine right and wrong whether it is for the sake of protecting front end employees or the system in general.

I'm pretty sure there are other places to discuss this type of subjects, but having such data exposed might not be ideal for an ordinary users to have access to.
You are being silly. Who are these "ordinary users"? Members of the public? Well, ATIP seems to believe that the information they made available can be available to a member of the public. And, surely, ATIP knows better than you (a random "ordinary user") what can and what cannot be made available to the public. Presumably any "ordinary user" making a similar request would get similar results.

ATIP has included the names of some public officials and their work (not *private*) email addresses. What is the big deal with that? You, as a random "ordinary user" should not be more concerned with any notion of "protecting front end employees or the system in general" than ATIP is. ATIP are specifically trained at that. That is what they do day after day. They know what to redact and what not to redact. You, on other hand, are just .... a random ordinary user. Stay in your lane!
 

MrChazz

Hero Member
May 4, 2021
247
225
I received a response to my status inquiry.



I expect that mammoth of a file containing the information that I requested for be sent to me on or before May 3rd. A few people have volunteered to review and summarize the details in the file. Depending on the file size, I might request a few more volunteers. So far, I have 5 people, including me.

Fingers crossed and I can't wait to see what IRCC has been doing to improve the situation we are in.

Very useful and interesting information! What has IRCC been doing to improve things? Apparently not much. In the file you have provided you will find an amazing note stating that digitization of citizenship grant is not a priority, and, also amazingly stated is that contrary to what we have been led to believe, even officers working from home have to go into the office and view physical files before finalizing a decision. It also appears that is only a very minimal attempt to prioritize completions by order of receipt. Nor is there any attempt to take into account such things as the fact that some people don't even have to take a test.

The impression I got after going through the whole file is that for the most part IRCC wants things to be as nearly the same as pre-covid and barely trying to adapt to the current situation. Emails show bureaucrats arguing endlessly about some straightforward things while missing some fairly straightforward solutions (if they are serious about adapting).

The only "positive" thing in the information is that Central Processing is now creating files at a faster rate. But with nothing happening in a timely fashion in the rest of the pipeline, this just means that the backlog is growing!

The overall picture is quite gloomy in terms of how long anything will take.
 

prash42

Hero Member
Jun 1, 2014
291
176
Technology is scalable. If it works for 5k online test takers, it can work for 50k (with suitable staffing for completeness and cheating detection checks). I doubt the bottleneck is technology or Marie Josee Dorion.

My money is on constraints placed on IRCC by the federal employees union. It is now increasingly common in collective bargaining agreements, to make automation investments conditional on union approval, as it weakens their negotiating position long-term.

Here is an idea.

The Director General in charge of online tests is Marie Josee Dorion (https://www.linkedin.com/in/dorion-marie-josee-87460692/?originalSubdomain=ca)
Her working email address is : marie-josee.dorion@cic.gc.ca

Would it be a good idea for us to write to her requesting for more resources to be deployed into this? As of now, we are look like numbers and statistics to her, so she is not under any pressure to ramp-up processing.
 

rajkamalmohanram

VIP Member
Apr 29, 2015
15,802
5,769
Exposing internal email addresses and URLs certainly is not a safe measure to display let alone in an opened shared document online.

There are times where we would need to determine right and wrong whether it is for the sake of protecting front end employees or the system in general.

I'm pretty sure there are other places to discuss this type of subjects, but having such data exposed might not be ideal for an ordinary users to have access to.
The department handling these requests knows the content of the document inside out. It took them three months to put together and redact/review this information. They likely would have spent more time on redacting, checking and re-checking the document to ensure that any information that is not supposed to be public is redacted than the time taken to compile this documentation.

There are no legal (or moral) restrictions in sharing this document to the public. I don't have any security clearance - I am an ordinary resident of this country just like you. None if this is classified information. This information is NOT available on their website but it can be safely shared. You do realize that they wouldn't give away any information that is classified to a normal member of the public, right? If I can get this information from them, I have every right to share it with the public without any repercussions whatsoever. If you made a similar request, you'll get the same response from them.
 
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Fallen_Warrior

Hero Member
May 16, 2013
287
121
The department handling these requests knows the content of the document inside out. It took them three months to put together and redact/review this information. They likely would have spent more time on redacting, checking and re-checking the document to ensure that any information that is not supposed to be public is redacted than the time taken to compile this documentation.

There are no legal (or moral) restrictions in sharing this document to the public. I don't have any security clearance - I am an ordinary resident of this country just like you. None if this is classified information. This information is NOT available on their website but it can be safely shared. You do realize that they wouldn't give away any information that is classified to a normal member of the public, right? If I can get this information from them, I have every right to share it with the public without any repercussions whatsoever. If you made a similar request, you'll get the same response from them.
@rajkamalmohanram Any progress on document summary?
 

Fallen_Warrior

Hero Member
May 16, 2013
287
121
Hello everyone,

Finally, I have just received the test invitation from Kitchener office. What a long wait, however, I am pleased that at least things are moving. Best of luck to all those who are still waiting, and have faith my friends. We are almost at the finish line.

Feb 2018 applicant.
 

vishalv

Hero Member
Jul 5, 2015
990
268
Category........
FSW
Visa Office......
ADVO
App. Filed.......
22-07-2016
Passport Req..
13-01-2016
VISA ISSUED...
28-02-2016
LANDED..........
12-03-2016
Hello everyone,

Finally, I have just received the test invitation from Kitchener office. What a long wait, however, I am pleased that at least things are moving. Best of luck to all those who are still waiting, and have faith my friends. We are almost at the finish line.

Feb 2018 applicant.
Congrats. So glad to see some movement. It's about time.
 

BOYX

Hero Member
May 5, 2017
436
221
Toronto, ON
Guys, I've finally received the corporate records from IRCC! I haven't gone through the file completely but looks like there is data there that could be useful.

As a reminder, here's the post detailing the information that I requested from IRCC.



Please find the document below.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1uLTJFxlUwXj3YHpXrcvMITBf9YbLbF6s/view?usp=sharing

I have 5 volunteers currently, including me. There are 353 pages in this document. I'd like a few more volunteers so that we can summarize this quickly.

If you'd like to volunteer to summarize the document, please leave a response to this post tagging me OR DM me.
Are you still looking for volunteers?