I looked on Ecas today... it said "decision made" !!
I called CIC and they told me my file had been finalised and that I will be granted PR (with my son) and to wait for a letter from my local office for an appointment to land.
Tears, jubiliation, excitement, relief, emotional as hell :)
Finally........ I applied 16th February 2005 (inland) with my son as a dependant (outland) and when my son lands it will be 5 years!
Don't give up hope my friends... dreams do come true!
Too excited to say more
OOps... 4 years, 11 months and 1 week... lol
Wow - congratulations on finally being done - that's awesome!
wonderful news! congradulations to you and your son.
I am SO happy for you - I feel like celebrating!!!
I cannot believe you've been through so much - one week short of five years! But you stayed strong and you won. Heartfelt congratulations to you - so happy you got your happy ending.
Give your son a big hug . . . from me.
Yes, yes, congratulations . . . at last.
aussie Wrote:why did it take 4 years?
This shows why it took almost 5 years!
I am English married to a Canadian and have applied as an Inland Spousal submission (Vegreville) and my son is an Outland dependant submission on my application through CIC London.
It's frustrating!
Application received by CIC Vegreville February 2005
Application processing begun May 2005
Request for information August 2005
Information submitted September 2005
Sponsorship approved by CIC January 2006
Letter received from CIC London stating my son was non-accompanying June 2006
(It took several e-mails and many weeks for them to find his file and acknowledge he was accompanying).
Medical Request sent to wrong address January 2007
Medical Request sent to correct address March 2007
Police Certificate requested March 2007
Police Certificate submitted April 2007
Medical for my son completed April 2007
Medical for me completed April 2007
Further Medical testing for me required July 2007
Medical Clearance for me given December 2007
Letter confirming I could apply for OHIP card January 2008
We then heard nothing for 8 months. CIC call centre told me repeatedly they were waiting for London to close the file so they could issue our PR. CIC London would not answer e-mail requests for updates. CIC Vegreville contacted London but could get no further information.
E-mail to Minister of Immigration sent August 2008
Letter received 13th September 2008 from London CIC stating they had lost my son's police certificate, his medical had expired and they required updated background information.
They had not looked at his file in over a year and it was only when the Ministers' office contacted them that they checked it.
Confirmation from the Ministers office received September that once CIC London had the requested information PR would be granted within 8-12 weeks.
Police Certificate, photo's and background information submitted Oct 14th 2008.
November 2008 - Immigration London finally gave my son a file number and stated "we started processing your application on November 8th" - 3 years and 9 months after they received it.
Medical forms (old system) received from CIC London January 16th 2009 despite assurance they would be issued as soon as the photo's were received (it took 3 months for them to return the forms from receipt). My son was in Canada and did not get them until he returned to England on 12th Feb 2009.
Medical re-done and submitted March 10th 2009.
Letter received from Medical Division requesting Psychiatric evaluation for my son as he had admitted to infrequent and ocassional social use of marijuana as a teenager.
After attending the interview in June it took 9 weeks to get the report from the psychiatrist and a further 9 weeks for that report to be evaluated by the medical division in London.
November 16th 2009 - request for new Police Certificate (the 3rd one!) and confirmation that the my son had passed the medical requirements. Request for updated forms IMM0008 and IMM5406E as well.
We were instructed to submit the ACPO and forms within 30 days otherwise my son would have to have another medical as his expires in March.
ACPO and forms received by CIC London on 2nd December 2009 and acknowledged on 14th December and confirmation given that the file was with an Immigration Officer for final assessment.
I Called CIC 6th January 2010 and was told a decision was made on Monday 4th January... and "welcome to Canada"
It has been the longest most stressful 5 years of my life!
Thank you all for the congrats and well wishing... much appreciated!
Now to wait for the letter...... hope it's not too long in coming!
Without any suggestions about Siouxie's case in particular, but rather about delays in general:
Cases do go off the rails, so to say, and once off the rails it seems (based on the personal experiences oft reported in the various forums) there is a tendency for more delays even after the initial problem is resolved; there are many reasons why a case may go off the rails, some just plain bad luck though I suspect these are a very small percentage -- but that small percentage is, of course, about real people and imposes very real hardships on those people. So even if relatively small in number, those cases loom large as problems which need to be addressed.
The vast majority of cases, however, are processed timely, and most cases that go off the rails are due to genuine problems with the case, or at least real complications in the case that simply make it more difficult to process. I do not know for sure, but I strongly suspect, that CIC is largely geared up to process the straight-forward cases and as soon as a case develops complications, just the queue itself gets much longer due to the lack of personnel handling it past that point. And this is probably true whether the case was simply complicated (dependent not present with applicant in situation involving issues of custody or capacity to take child to another country, and so on, are, for example, complicating factors) or problematic (admissibility issues) or slipped off the rails inadvertently.
All that said: inland applications by persons from visa exempt countries tend, it seems, to have a fairly high risk (hard to know since there are no statistics on this and obviously the problematic cases, or at least the delayed cases, are more likely to get discussed much in a forum like this) of being referred to the local office and there encountering rather long delays in processing -- in part, one gets the impression, this is indeed due to the fact that filing the inland app by a visa-exempt person seems to raise suspicions, even though it otherwise appears that most visa-exempt persons who file inland are simply confused because CIC itself does not make it clear that even a person physically in Canada can (and if visa-exempt, in most instances should) file an outland application.
The system is far from perfect, but given the tens of thousands of cases handled every year, CIC does an impressively good job . . . though of course, there will always be (as long as residential mobility is restricted by national borders) tension between those who place facilitating immigration by qualified persons at a high priority versus those who feel that the immigration processing procedures are too lax and allow for too many undesirables to get into the country.
WOW!! Congratulations on your decision.
congratulations! glad to hear it finally worked out!
Thank you everyone!
I believe that one of the reasons my application took so long was I was being processed under the old rules, and additionally my part of the application was processed in Canada (and finalised 2 years ago) whilst my son's part was being processed by London UK. Split processing does slow things down considerably.
There was no reason for any delays other than that (ie custody issues or otherwise - he was 21) I think we just "fell through the cracks" and got put to the bottom of the heap.
Whilst it has been incredibly frustrating, all's well that ends well... and I got the official letter this morning telling me I will be contacted by my local office to arrange a landing interview.
I hope that others receive "good news" very soon too!
Thanks again...
Siouxie,
I'm sorry for the delay in congratulating you!!! I can't even imagine what you're experience was like to go through. I'm sooooooooooo happy for you!!! You can now exhale!!! :)
Best wishes!!!
Shawn
Congratulations!!!! was a very long Journey, but Finally Finished. Have a Great life!! Best Wishes!
Fernando