My apologies. Excusez-moi, madame.
Where was I? I got my forms, I sent them off, and within 11 days I had a reply from CIC, Citizenship and Immigration Canada, saying that I should receive my certificate within five to seven months unless there was anything further they needed to ask me. That was okay.
In October 2005 I received another letter from CIC saying it was taking longer than they had anticipated, and thanking me for my patience. Zilch since; I haven't heard anything since. Oh, I ring up periodically. I don't like to bother anybody, because at the end of the day it comes down to one other human being; this is my logic. They can talk about bureaucracy. There's no such thing as a bureaucratic machine; it's a human being, right? I don't want to tread on anybody's corns, so I just ask every few months. I go in to my CIC office and ask there.
The last time I went down into Kelowna, she checked it out for me and said, “I'm really sorry, but you're on hold”, basically. So I said to her, “Do you think CIC will award me my citizenship posthumously?” “What do you mean?” she said. I wasn't joking, honestly, and I said, “Well, will they let me be buried a Canadian, if they won't let me live as one?” She said, “Oh!”—literally. “Oh, don't say that.”
I said I'm serious, because it is that important to me. It's me; it's my total identity. It supercedes being wife, mother, daughter, or anything. It's me, my total self. I, sir, am a Canadian. To the roots of me, to the spirit of me, to the soul of me, I'm Canadian.
And I can't even work in my country. I've been 16 years without practising as a registered nurse, because I'm not allowed to work on extended stay, and there's no intermediate thing, or I haven't found it. And I've tried to look; maybe I've looked in the wrong place.
But I've babbled on. Thank you for hearing me.