Madam Speaker, I have three petitions to present today.
In the first one, the petitioners note that applicants for many processes and documents at IRCC, including citizenship applications and PR cards, face prolonged delays in processing. Many have received no response or details from IRCC on the status of their application or expected timelines, which prevents them from being able to plan important and critical life decisions. Many applicants have missed or are missing important family events because they are at some stage of citizenship application and the email for the next step can come at any time.
They are therefore calling on the government to increase staffing and resources at IRCC in order to address the backlog of outstanding applications for citizenship that were submitted in 2019 and 2020, and provide clear status and concise expected timelines to applicants so that they can make decisions and plan accordingly, in order to address the ambiguity of getting an email for a test or an oath ceremony at any time. Finally, in a case of unreasonable delay, they are calling for IRCC to provide the reason to the applicant and clear steps to mitigate the delay and ensure that the applicant's PR card can be received promptly.