You asked a long question, and I am gonna answer you even longer!
Well, to begin with, I have seen a lot of people on these threads backing GCMS notes in a way that I feel like they are being paid by those websites to advertise their products on these forums.Of note, the owner of some of these websites are some VIP members who started from these forums.
Anyways, I personally don't know if it effects the processing time or not. But, there are several points that comes to my mind
- CIC does not have one single office. Different offices may have different policies (internal). Some may delay the process some may not. I am not sure!
- All the documents for a person gets recorded in the Global Case Management System (GCMS). Specifically, all the communication with CIC (including ordering notes) gets recorded. Some people believe that too much inquiries might cause a red flag in your case, especially for the people in SS. However, I have seen cases who ordered notes on a monthly basis, yet they got their ppr in 6 months!
- Different group of people are responsible for ATI (Access to Information) notes. The question is: Do those people have any contact with the officer working on the file? Is it going to make any complications? or is just the case that the ATI officer prints out the GCMS.
- CIC collaborates with a lot of other department and agencies for permanent residency, e.g. RCMP, CBSA, CSIS, etc. How about them? What is their policy wit the notes?
- We need to know what is the use of notes and what is the purpose of ordering them? What kind of benefit it has? Is it worth it?
- ....
However, given all the above question, I believe ordering notes after 3-4 months of aor is a must. The benefit of ordering notes outweigh any disadvantages (may or may not exist).
The steps for a file is that first someone checks the completeness of the application. At this step, a lot of applicants get rejected but there is little that a person can do about it, because the rejection is because the application was not complete and missed some important docs. Then, a case analyst, evaluates all the documents such as education, work experience, language, PoF, etc. In this step, a lot of people gets RR because some of the docs they provided was vague. This is the step that the applicant should be proactive and immediately send some supporting doc to back the application. Otherwise, the file goes to several rounds of reviews by senior analysts and officers and may get rejected. The processing time also gets so long because a lot of people need to check the info. However, if the person orders notes, they know where the problem is and they can solve it immediately. Usually case analysts reviews the doc before the end of 4 month of aor. That is why everyone recommends that around that time applicant should order notes to know what is going on.
After the eligibility is done, the CIC part is almost over. The criminality and security is mostly done by other agencies. Especially for security that the file is completely analyzed by CBSA. At this point I don't think if ordering CIC notes have any negative impact on the processing of CBSA! Also, there is no advantage either. There is little that applicant can do about criminality and security, except waiting. At this stage. I think ordering notes doesn't have any benefit or disadvantage. It just helps time passes faster!
Lastly, the joke is that I have seen applicants who have been waiting for more than a year, but still they don't order notes because they are afraid that it might prolong their processing time. I am like your case is already long, what are you afraid of. Then when they receive rejection, they realize that they should have some small errors that was easy to correct!
For ordering, if you are in Canada, it is free. If there is a person in Canada who can order for you, it costs 5$. Otherwise, you have to use a third party. I am not sure which one is better as I never used them. If you search there are a lot of forums teaching how to order them.
