Indians living in Canada have stepped up to get a big number of permanent citizenship this year. Citizenship applicants have increased by almost 50% as compared to last year.
Based on the request of a newspaper TOI, the Canadian officials have shared some statistics, on the basis of which this information was received.
According to the figures for the last 10 months ending October 2018, about 15,000 Indians obtained Canadian citizenship. This is a 50% increase as compared the year 2017.
As the country of birth, India figured in the second highest application from those requesting for Canadian citizenship.
The Philippines is number one on this list but the difference is not something special. During this 10-month period, 15600 Philippines citizens got Canadian citizenship.
According to the statistics, 1.39 lakh permanent residents have earned Canadian citizenship in the last 10 months ended October 30. The number of Indians in this was just about 11%.
These are preliminary figures and final statistics are expected to be more than that.
However, it is much less than in 2015 when 28,000 Indians had registered for Canadian citizenship.
Talha Mohani, MD and Immigration Law Specialist at Migration Bureau Corp told that it has become easy to apply for Canadian citizenship since October 2017.
He said that a permanent resident has to physically stay in Canada for only 3 years out of 5.
Managing Attorney at NPZ Law Group, David Nachman, said that a Canadian passport (citizenship) enables individuals to apply for Trade National (TN) visas, which allows them to work in the US.
Although it is similar to the H-1B work visa, it is not subject to the annual cap and is easier to obtain.
-Harleen Sandhu
