The Senate has amended the Citizenship Act to allow citizenship judges to perform their duties by electronic means.
The June 22 amendment states, “A citizenship judge and the Registrar of Canadian Citizenship may in the exercise of their powers and performance of their duties and functions of this Act use the electronic means that are made available or specified by the Minister.”
According to Blacklock’s Reporter, the Department of Immigration refused numerous requests for an explanation on whether the amendment means it planned to eliminate in-person ceremonies as a legal requirement to obtain citizenship, and instead allow immigrants to swear allegiance to the country by clicking a box on a federal website.
“Technology offers the potential to vastly transform client service,” the department wrote in a legal notice in February.
The amendment passed as a single sentence in Bill C-47, the government’s 430-page omnibus budget bill.
Applicants would still have to pay a $630 fee and pass a citizenship test. Still, the public swearing of an oath has been mandatory since 1947, and the initial proposal for clicking a box to obtain citizenship prompted a public outcry.
“The negative concerns I have heard about this idea are legion,” then-Senator Patricia Bovey of Manitoba said March 21. Real ceremonies that require immigrants to raise their right hand and swear allegiance are “truly moving,” she said.
A total of 367,405 new citizens took the oath last year, by official estimate, in 3,742 ceremonies, both in-person and in video conferences.
The current oath states: “I swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to His Majesty King Charles III, King of Canada, his heirs and successors, and that I will faithfully observe the laws of Canada including the Constitution which recognizes and affirms the Aboriginal and treaty rights of First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples, and fulfil my duties as a Canadian citizen.”
