Hi,
Having dropped by this forum a few times over the past few months and found it to be most useful, I thought I would share our journey to obtain PR for my wife and two young daughters.
Status:
I am a dual nationality Canadian/British citizen currently living in the UK with my wife (married 10 years) and two daughters who are all British nationals. We have been planning to move to Canada on and off for the last 7 years, including annual trips to research different areas. Six months ago we began the process of putting together the application for Permanent Residency for my wife and the girls from outside Canada. We did this ourselves without the use of an agent. We received COPR on 29th August 2019. We will move to Ontario in early 2020.
Timeline
· 20th May ’19 – Application Sent from UK
· 24th May ’19 – Arrived Sydney, Nova Scotia
· 27th May ’19 – Application received Sydney, Nova Scotia
· 16th July ’19 – Biometrics request received via email
· 17th July ’19 – Acknowledgement of Receipt received via email
· 17th July ’19 – Medical request received via GC Key (online account)
· 17th July ’19 – Sponsor Acceptance received via email
· 24th July ’19 – Application transferred to Mississauga, notification via email.
· 25th July ’19 – Biometrics given, London VO office
· 25th July ’19 – Biometrics received, update via GC Key
· 29th July ’19 – Medical appointment, Manchester, UK
· 1st August ’19 – Medical passed, update via GC Key
· 13th August ’19 – Passport request received via email – N.B. I noticed a change on the online tool to Decision Made. No change on the GC Key.
· 19th August – Passport copies sent to London, UK VO. N.B -Our GC Key online account had not updated so we were unable to upload documents. Instead we followed the instructions for visa exempt countries with no online account and sent a note explain why we had done so.
· 20th August – Passport received at London VO.
· 29th August – Electronic COPR mail received via GC key
· 31st August – Hard copies of COPR arrived in the post
We were shocked at how fast the application went through as we were expecting it to be closer to the twelve months stated. The only hiccup we had was right at the start when our initial courier lost the first application package. Luckily, I had backed everything up and was able to reprint and resend in a short amount of time. Just as well as we made sure to include a lot of information about our backgrounds and intention to move to our chosen location once PR was granted.
I understand how painful it can be to wait for information to come through and appreciate we are extremely lucky. By sharing our timeline hopefully you can see that that applications can go through the system quickly if all the stars align. I wish everyone still waiting to hear all the best.