The concerned minister of Canada –- who was recently quoted as saying that the ability to correspond efficiently in either of the two, French or English, was pivotal for the new citizens in Canada to make the cut successfully — has lately proposed changes to the language requirements, for the purpose of acquiring the citizenship of the country.

Under the present process, involving citizenship, the aspirants have to prove that they can converse in one of the two official languages of the nation, namely, French or English. They also have to appear for a test, with multiple choices, and show their language expertise to the concerned officials by answering easy questions, apart from understanding fundamental statements.

Many experts opine that the present test fails to test the skills related to listening and speaking. The new rules of Canadian Immigration would necessitate the aspirants, keen on getting citizenship of the country, to produce documents which may substantiate their declared expertise in the language.

Under the new rule, the aspirants will be able to show their proficiency in language via one of these three manners: sailing through a third party test involving the language, proof of conclusion of either secondary or post-secondary education in either English or French, proof of getting fundamental proficiency in specific language training programs funded by the government.

Under the current system, in case the concerned officials bring to notice issues with the language abilities of an aspirant, he must appear before a citizenship judge who afterwards will test his skills involving the language. At times, this leads to unwanted holdups. It is believed that the suggested new requirements with documents, involving the English ability having to be provided at the very beginning, will lead to improved and quicker processing of the applications related to citizenship.