As a part of continuing immigration reform in the Canadian government by Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism, Jason Kenney, applicants who fail their citizenship test will get a chance to re-do it, according to a Citizenship and Immigration Canada news release.
The citizenship test is one of the last steps for a Permanent Resident who is becoming a citizen of Canada. It examines one’s understanding of either the English or French language as well as their knowledge of Canadian history, government and culture.
Previously, Permanent Residents who failed this test had to wait months until they could go before an immigration judge and make their argument for citizenship. Oftentimes this is where they would try to pass the test again, only in front of the citizenship judge. This process has been judged to be ineffectual and needlessly lengthy.
Now, if immigrants do not pass the test they will be offered the chance to re-take the test a few weeks after the first test. Once an immigrant passes the citizenship test, they will be able to take the citizenship oath and become a citizen.
For Permanent Residents who are applying as a group, such as the case with family applications, one person’s failure to pass the citizenship test will not hold back other people on the application who have passed the test from taking their citizenship oaths.
This is not the first reform involving the citizenship test. Early in the 2000s the test was changed to be much harder, but the result of this action caused very large numbers of immigrants to fail the immigration test. Even people who were already Canadian citizens would fail this test! Shortly thereafter, the test was made more reasonable and it is this edition of the test which is used now.
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