Canada toughens requirements to become a citizen

Canada toughens requirements to become a citizen.

While it seems the way to become a citizen of the United States is to walk across the southern border, wait until President Obama gets around to signing an executive order granting amnesty, and then wait some more, Canada made another legislative change to tighten the process of becoming a Canadian citizen. While these changes are relatively minor, they are part of a larger process to make Canadian citizenship meaningful.

Bill C-24, called the Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act, was given Royal Assent on June 19 and many of the bill’s provisions became effective on Aug. 1.

The major change in the new law deals with the residency requirements a permanent resident must meet in order to legally apply for citizenship. Under the former legislation, a person must have been resident in Canada for three of the four years before an application for citizenship could be made.

Despite the residency requirement, the term, “residency” was never defined under the previous law and Citizenship judges and the courts were left to decide what constitutes residency. Now residency is defined as a physical presence in Canada.