Citizenship Backlog Handling by New Staff

CBC News!!! Dozens of additional immigration staff have been reassigned to process Canadian citizenship applications to assist deal with delays. In current years, the wait time for people applying to turn out to be citizens has gone from five to 19 months. All applications go through one office, in Sydney, N.S, and about 250 were working there.

Jeannette Meunier-McKay, national president of the Canada Employment and Immigration Union, told CBC News on Monday her members were complaining about workload, and that they weren't able to process applications on time.

"They were frustrated for the reason that they couldn't provide the quality and the quick services to the immigrants," said Meunier-McKay.

Changes to federal legislation Applications for citizenship greater than before after changes to the Canada Immigration Act in 2009. People, who hadn't been entitled before, such as children of Canadians born outside the country, are now able to submit an application.

The Canada Employment and Immigration Union lobbied Ottawa to employ extra workers this summer. So far, 160 staff, typically federal workers who were facing dismiss, started a seven-month contract in September, working specially on citizenship applications.

It's still taking time to decrease the delays, but Meunier-McKay said she is confident that will change. There's still a pressure level as far as they see the applications in there, but there's a improved sense" that things are moving forward. So hopefully we'll start seeing a turn down in the processing time.