Ahh yes! the Get-Your-Friend-To-Call-A-Congressman approach. Works like a charm every time ;)
My mother recommended that we contact our local congressperson, David Price. I was extremely doubtful that anything would come of it. We had never had any contact of any kind with him or anyone who knows him before. We are not wealthy or have any special status. We wrote an email to his office, two days later his office called us to tell us that they had contacted the passport agency, and the next day fedex delivered a renewed passport that had been overnighted to us.
I did some research and this is actually pretty common. If you want something like a phone call or letter of inquiry to a federal agency, congresspeople are generally happy to do it because it's easy to do and generates goodwill.
As to renewing a passport, I just always pay up for a service that takes care of it for me. Less risk. I once got a new passport and a China visa in 5 days, but it did cost $600.
Anyone in the US can contact their congressperson & this is the typical course of redress if one is stuck in a process run by the federal government or having some issue with the federal government. A family member did it once to get a passport application expedited for a trip, it's not unusual.
Protip: Your House representative is likely to be more responsive than your Senator. Being up for re-election every 2 years rather than every 6, House members have more incentive to directly serve their constituents.
You can also email the prime minister and sometimes they’ll forward it to the Minister responsible and then they have to reply. Just make sure to phrase it as a non-systemic issue when it was a systemic issue they created ;)
My MP told me to get a job at McDonald's, Wal-Mart or Crappy Tire, because they have rubber-stamp approval for Permanent Residency, and that would be the best way. I'd just have to suck it up and earn minimum wage for 2 years.
Or be a student for four years. He had no idea how I was supposed to pay for that.
.. eventually though I convinced Bell and the Province I was living in to run me through the "Provincial Nominee" stream, which required TONS of paperwork to prove that no Canadian was willing or able to do the job, and therefore they needed a foreigner like me. That took 2 years of paperwork, interviews, medical tests and background checks and being saddled to that job before I finally got it.
Though I did email an MP about how Bell was trying to destroy Teksavvy and out lacklustre telecom competition (my DSL line was stuck at 1mbps...). Their office responded that our MP was a retired Bell linesman and Bell’s competitors use poorer quality lines.
I guess Bell was good to him at the expense of their customers...
... still not a citizen though. That's a LONG process!
Things are most likely different now.
And that's just to apply. The process can easily take a year or two longer. Also every day I spend outside Canada (holiday, visiting family, whatever) pushes that back.
It's a LONG process.
To be eligible to become a Canadian citizen, you must:
be a permanent resident
have lived in Canada for 3 out of the last 5 years
have filed your taxes, if you need to
pass a citizenship test
prove your language skills
Other requirements may apply.
My application in mid 2015 was denied because they received it the day after the rules changed from what you posted to what I posted.
It must have changed back in the mean time, and I've never looked into it again.
Thanks very much!
And because you said "ages ago" I suspect you and I have the same original passport.
I still think it would have been worse without the letter, and at least it helped my neighbour's spirits. She comes from a part of the world where nothing happens without a bribe, and even then it ain't very effective.