Immigrant

One of the last remaining obstacles to our impending relocation to the Pacific Northwest coast of British Columbia has been officially surmounted. Yesterday – in the post – I received the Confirmation of Permanent Residency (COPR) that marks the virtual culmination of the process of becoming a full time inhabitant of Canada.

Hoo – bloomin’ – ray!

All that now remains in this regard is for me to ‘land’ on the continent and for this temporary visa to be exchanged for the actual PR document. Fears that the expiry of my medical certificate at the end of April – the which is normally used as the deadline for landing once the COPR has been issued – might cause a problem have been excised by Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) extending the visa period for a year – to May 2016.

The whole process – which has felt for much of the time as though it were indeed doing its best to live up to the ‘Imperceptible’ tag – has actually taken about two weeks less than a year. Given that the CIC website originally indicated that the expected processing time would be around eleven months, I guess I shouldn’t complain.

It has – however – felt like an eternity!

Well – this is it:

One factor in our case for the process seeming quite as extended as it has is that we made a first abortive attempt to set things in motion back in 2012, when the Kickass Canada Girl had moved – temporarily as it turned out – to Victoria. For those with a predilection for completeness here follows the complete trail of my posts documenting the whole shebang…

• A Tough Occupation – May 2012 – an introduction to the PR process
• A Word from our Sponsor – May 2012 – the part that the Girl would have to play in the process
• Prerequisites – May 2012 – a description of the documentation that would need to be gathered before completing the application
• Doctor, Doctor – June 2012 – my first visit to the doctor to acquire a medical certificate
• A Little Application-1 – June 2012 – details of the complete sponsor’s application
• A Little Application-2 – June 2012 – details of my own complete application
• Leave to Remain – December 2012 – first attempt abandoned
• Residency Revisited – February 2014 – the process restarted a year on
• Residency Revisited – Revisited – February 2014 – further information gleaned concerning the process
• Spot the Difference – April 2014 – second medical and police certificates are obtained
• Momentous Day – June 2014 – the completed application is at last submitted
• Cause for Celebration – August 2014 – the Girl is approved as a sponsor
• In the System – August 2014 – our first appearance on the Electronic Client Application Status (ECAS) site
• The Waiting Game  – November 2014 – introduction to the London sponsored applicant spreadsheet on the British Expat website
• Signs of Life – November 2014 – request for payment of the Right of Permanent Residence Fee (RPRF)
• Glory Be! – March 2015 – finally – the application appears as ‘In Process’ on the ECAS
• Hallelujah! – May 2015 – and now it switches to ‘Decision Made’
• It’s Official – May 2015 – this very post – I have my COPR!

Phew!

No more need be said…

Glory be!

Inf. an exclamation expressing surprise or shock. (A bit old-fashioned.)

Idioms – The Free Dictionary

Since paying the Right of Permanent Residency Fee (RPRF) shortly before the end of last year I have – with almost religious fervour – been logging on daily to the CIC’s Electronic Client Application Status (ECAS) portal to check on the progress of my application for Canadian Permanent Residency. The status routinely revealed thereby appeared to be stuck so obstinately on “Application Received” that I was beginning to wonder if the whole kit and caboodle had become lost somewhere in the machinery – or whether there might be some sort of un-revealed issue with my application – or if indeed we would needs make the journey to BC in July without having heard anything at all…

Then – all of a sudden – when I logged on yesterday the status had changed to “In Process“! As you can see from the screen capture below – processing actually started on March 10th.

Whoopee!!

This is very good news. There is but one step to go, at which point the status will change to “Decision Made” and – all being well – the necessary documents will be sent out. Anecdotal evidence from the expat fora suggests that this might not take too much longer, and further that sometimes the documents arrive without the status on the ECAS being updated at all.

Well – this is all really quite unbearably exciting!

Waiting for word from Citizenship and Immigration Canada regarding my application for Canadian Permanent Residency is a nerve shredding affair – the which is clearly also the case for the many who contribute to the fora of the various InterWebNet sites (several of which are linked in my blogroll) that are so very helpful to the putative immigrant. The situation is certainly not helped by the (perhaps understandable) total lack of information relayed to the eager applicant as things progress (or not!).

Way back at the very start of my first attempt at the residency process in 2012 I explained in this helpful post the various classes under which one can apply. I had but a single choice – to be sponsored under the family class with my spouse – the wholly admirable Kickass Canada Girl – as my sponsor.

Of course – it is actually more complex than that. Spousal sponsorship applications can be made under two further categories – Inland and Outland. Logic suggests that Inland applications are for those couples already living in Canada, whereas Outland applications are for those where the applicant is not yet resident. Inland applications can take longer to process – being considered less urgent since the couple are already together. As it happens many couples are actually eligible to apply under either category, and may thus choose the supposedly ‘quicker’ option. In practice – of course – it still doesn’t feel that quick!

Regardless of the type of application being made the paperwork is sent in the first instance to CIC in Mississauga, Ontario. CIC processes the sponsor’s application and – once sponsor approval has been granted – the norm for Outland applications (such as mine) is for the applicant’s paperwork to be sent back to his or her nearest visa office to be processed in full. That this does not always happen is dependant on the workloads on the various visa offices. Sometimes the whole application is processed in Canada, which is invariably the fastest option.

Sadly my paperwork was returned to London.

The timeline for my application – thus far – has been as follows:

• Medical certificate obtained – 30th April 2014
• Applications fees paid online – 31st May 2014
• Application sent to Mississauga – 3rd June 2014
• Application received by CIC – 6th June 2014
• Sponsor approval – 31st July 2014
• e-Client Application Status (EAS) online tool shows application and medical results received – 1st-Aug-2014
• Request from London Visa Office for RPRF fee – 27th November 2014
• RPRF fee paid online and receipt forwarded to London office – 27th November 2014

The CIC website has a guide to current processing times which covers the first part of the operation. For the second phase the applicant is referred to the local visa office website. Until very recently the London site has consistently shown a total processing time of 11 months, which figure is based on actual processing times over the previous 12 months.

About a week ago – to my absolute horror – the stated processing time shot up to 29 months!!!

The InterWebNet fora were – quite naturally – agog with anxious applicants seeking some sort of explanation for this abrupt escalation. The older hands at this mularkey offered the following:

Midway through 2014 the London office took over processing applications from that in Islamabad – where total processing times had reached 36 months, so swamped were they. The best guess is that the new 29 month figure is simply the result of combining those two sets of statistics, and the consensus seems to be that the times for UK applications are unlikely to change significantly from the previously quoted figure.

This remains, of course, to be seen – but I have to say that such shocks are not good for the constitution of us (near) pensioners!

Hmmm!

No more than a few days ago – in a post generally bemoaning the lack of progress on our long road to retirement in BC – I wrote this regarding my application for Canadian permanent residency:

“My application is – however – approaching the average time to decision, and I am thus in a state of considerable anticipation.”

Yesterday the following popped into my inbox as I slaved away at my desk at School:

Not only is this the first indication that I have had that London is now actively processing my application, but also – I feel – most convincing evidence that it will meet with approval in reasonably short order. I would not – after all – be asked to pay the Right of Permanent Residence Fee (RPRF) were I not soon to be granted that privilege.

Naturally I paid CIC immediately by credit card and forwarded the electronic receipt to London – so as not to delay the process further.

This is really most exciting!

At the culmination of my last post – imaginatively titled ‘Residency revisited‘ – I wound up my deliberation on the requirement for the Kickass Canada Girl and I to ‘prove’ that we do indeed intend to reside in Canada should permanent residency be granted with the observation that further research was needed – and said that I would ‘get back to you’ with the results thereof.

I’m back!

It is a testament to the power of the InterWebNet that simply ‘Googling’ – “Proof that you intend to live in Canada with your spouse” – turns up the answer almost immediately, in the form of a reference to a document entitled “IP 2 Processing Applications to Sponsor Members of the Family Class“. This tract – previously unknown to me and hidden well away on an obscure branch of the CIC website – contains the following section:

13.3.      Sponsorship by Canadian citizens living abroad

The following applies to Canadian citizens living abroad:

• Canadian citizens who reside abroad may sponsor only their spouse, common-law partner, conjugal partner or a dependent child who does not have dependent children of their own;

• they must submit their sponsorship application package and fees to the CPC-M in Canada and not to the visa office;

• Canadian citizens who are tourists in a foreign country, even for extended periods, are still residents of Canada;

• Canadian citizens who are long-term workers or students in another country are generally considered residents of that country;

• Canadians who have spent little or no time in Canada may also seek to sponsor. If they have never worked in Canada and do not have the educational or language skills to find employment in Canada, refusal under A39 may be appropriate if arrangements for the care and support of the sponsored person are not satisfactory;

• sponsors must provide evidence that they will reside in Canada after the sponsored persons and their family members become permanent residents.

Evidence that sponsors will reside in Canada may include one or more of the following:

• letter from an employer;

• letter of acceptance to a Canadian educational institution;

• proof of having rented/bought a dwelling in Canada;

• reasonable plans for re-establishing in Canada or severing ties to the other country.

Of this suggested evidence the first three bullet-points are pretty much covered by the surmisings in my last post and would – for us – be no simple matter with which to comply. That leaves the ‘reasonable plan‘ of the final point. I guess that we must make a case thereon which would incorporate the following mitigating factors:

• the Girl has a dependent in Victoria
• we have a number of bank accounts in Canada, which contain pretty much all of our savings
• the Girl has Canadian pensions
• by the time we submit our PR application our property in the UK should be on the market
• we can call on the testimony of Canadian family and friends

Failing all else I might simply refer CIC to this blog! That should do the trick…

In the course of my researches I discovered a most useful forum that goes by the appellation ‘Road to Canada’. Amongst other topics upon which the site offers valuable discourse was one concerning the process to be followed once permanent residency has been approved. I had – somewhat naively – assumed that it was simply a matter of being furnished with the relevant documentation and then being able to rock up at the Canadian border at some point during the succeeding years to be greeted with open arms.

Not so…

What actually happens is that once residency is approved a temporary visa is granted and one must then cross the Canadian border at some point before that visa expires. On so doing permanent residency commences and the immigrant is then subject to the requirement of being resident in Canada for two out of any five years. In practice this means that – whereas one needn’t actually move to Canada until up to three years after permanent residency has been taken up – one must visit before the temporary visa expires. This expiration date is apparently the anniversary of the required medical certificate, which – given the length of time that it takes to process PR applications nowadays – is normally somewhere between a fortnight and sixty days.

All of which means that the timing of the application is critical and must be considered most carefully.

More anon…