I do think it's a very exciting time for Canadian citizenship, not just because of gold medals in hockey at Sochi and other achievements of which we are justifiably proud. We are making progress in delivering citizenship better. In just two months there were 41,000 citizenship awards. That puts us on a pace, if we kept it up, to do 240,000 this year, which would be well beyond what we have ever done in the past. I don't expect that, by the way. But it's a great way to begin the year. It certainly has us on a pace to beat last year, and the year before, even before the provisions of the new act come into play which will make us more efficient and more productive on the citizenship front.
I should mention, in talking about the Institute for Canadian Citizenship, there is one great initiative that I didn't mention which is their cultural access pass, which allows newcomers to Canada to go to this huge number of cultural attractions and national parks across the country that most of us have not visited. It's a great way to open their imaginations and minds to the scale of this country and its history.
But what are we doing in this bill to strengthen Canadian citizenship? I think it really comes down to two things.
One, taking a solemn commitment from every applicant to be a citizen, that they are going to reside here, that they are going to meet the terms required to become a citizen. We're going to do that in a way that is verifiable now. That's exciting because it's going to make the rules clearer, more understandable, and equal for everyone. There won't be ways of jumping the queue or getting around the rules.
Two, we are going to make sure there is this deeper connection, this sense of attachment and belonging to Canada. It used to be five years under successive Liberal governments, until the 1970s. Then it went down to three years, and we had a certain number of people who weren't even here for the three years and nevertheless became Canadian citizens. Now we're saying it's going to be four years out of six. That's flexibility that reflects the global lives that many people are leading, but it's going to emphasize to newcomers to Canada that there is no substitute for direct experience of our country. Four years of that experience, we think, is enough to create the connection that leads to strong citizenship.
I have to say we are very pleased by the reaction we've had, first and foremost from newcomers, from new Canadians themselves saying this is what they want to see. Canadian citizenship has value, and no one is going to protect the value of our citizenship if we don't do that ourselves, especially we as legislators in this committee and the Parliament of Canada.