How did you try to convince them in the first place? Statements like this make me worried that we will provide enough information.
We are about to apply and wrote a long letter with the why, when and where. We are also including a few letters from family and friends stating that they know that we want to move there. But we obviously can't give them a rental agreement or a job offer in Canada because it is impossible to get such things so much in advance.
In the original application I had sent a letter from my mother promising us housing and support indefinitely.
In the additional documents request, I sent OHIP registrations for my son and myself, travel insurance I had bought for my son and wife as they had come to Canada early, and a bank statement.
This was not enough.
Since the Procedural Fairness letter, I uploaded some 14-15 files through the case specific enquiry webform. I had to send 3 separate forms as there is a file size limitation of 2 mb, and a total limit of 3.5 mb per submission.
So far we’ve received confirmation of the first batch sent off. If we don’t get confirmation of the 2nd and 3rd batches, I’ll upload them again.
Also I sent all the files to the email address that was in the “additional documents” email even though that wasn’t an option in the Procedural Fairness letter. They said snail mail or webform, but the first time I tried to upload anything I kept getting the internal server 500 error. Whatever it was.
I’m considering sending some pictures of us around town, and some Xmas photos. Just bury them in evidence.
We had to come to Canada early due to a family emergency about a month after we submitted our application, so it’s pretty easy to prove we are here. Less easy to get that point across to CIC, or to convince them that we plan to stay here permanently.
In retrospect I would have definitely taken this part of the application a whole lot more seriously. I mean there is only so much you can do when you live and work abroad, because as in our case, they are ready to hit the eject button unless we are able to convince somebody not to.
I guess they are weary of issuing PR to people that don’t intend to actually live here, but I thought our intent was pretty clear.