Thank you, Chair, and thank you for the clarification on the position of moving the motion.
For the interpreters, this is amendment CPC‑44. This would result in a new clause 3. I move that Bill S‑245 be amended by adding after line 22 on page 1 the following:
Section 27.2 of the Act is amended by adding the following after (d):
(e) specifying required timelines for citizenship applications to be processed by the Department of Citizenship and Immigration to ensure reasonable timelines for applicants are met.
Chair, the rationale behind this amendment is that throughout testimony here, including throughout testimony from the department officials, particularly as related to the rationale for moving the oath of citizenship online, we have heard that there have been difficulties in meeting service standards for processing citizenship applications.
This is still problematic, and I think part of our deliberations on this bill were on some of the processing timelines that might occur, given the volume of citizenship applications as well.
The purpose of this amendment is to underscore the need to ensure reasonable timelines for processing of applications.
While I have the floor, Chair, I would just re-emphasize that the scope of this bill was opened up for amendments, and that is what we're doing. We're making rational amendments to try to strengthen this bill as well as strengthen the Citizenship Act. The intent of this amendment is to ensure that citizenship applications are processed in a timely fashion and that we are enshrining timeliness in the Citizenship Act itself.
Thank you.