Track your PR card timeline and processing times here
- Thread starter ntwkengg
- Start date
When you landed it was around 3 weeks but they started processing the cards soon after you landed.
PR Card is primarily used for travel so not a priority. Also impossible to process PR cards from home.
Certain communities being focused on immigration is partially leftover from a time where moving to Canada, UK, Australia was almost guaranteed to be an upgrade in your living standards. Housing didn’t cost as much and if you worked hard, even at a lower salary, you could get a home and send money back and build/buy a home in your home country. Many immigrants also don’t want to show their family and friends that life is difficult in Canada. That only makes more people want to immigrate. I always encourage people to really look at whether they will have a better life in Canada especially if you are doing well in your home country. Both parents work in Canada told afford abasic to decent lifestyle not because of gender equality. People hear about CCB and consider it ”extra money”. It is geared to income so the poorest get the most and at that level of income CCB is needed to afford basic goods like more nutritious food, help with childcare costs, etc. Same as “free“ schooling. People compare it to what they are paying at home but don’t consider the much higher income tax rate. People also see free healthcare and expect the same fast access to healthcare that they may have had access to in private hospital in their home country. Canada is relatively easy to immigrate to and get citizenship and we speak English. It is relatively hard to immigrate to the Nordic countries. Many are unwilling to learn German which isn’t easy. The UK has lots of issues and the £ has decreased.
I love Canada but need to immigrate with realistic expectations.
It's a priority for people who need to be mobile, some people still have commitments to wrap up in their home country, some people may have to travel for work when they're based in Canada.
I know there is the PRTD visa, but i think we have a realistic expectation to obtain our PR card within a reasonable time frame.
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This is a pandemic no reasonable expectations apply. Someone needing cancer surgery also must think they should be able to get surgery within a reasonable amount of time but are being delayed as well.
During a pandemic Canada isn’t encouraging any travel aand most people aren’t travelling so in general not a priority for the government to send out PR cards. It also uses a lot of in person labour. Business travel may not be considered necessary travel to the countries you are travelling into and you would likely be in a 14 day quarantine entering most countries. No guarantees these days that you leave Canada that you’ll be able to enter. Still lots of people stuck abroad.
Although I empathize I can see why it was an easy decision to redistribute resources to something more urgent like repatriation requests.
I don't think working on PR cards and repatriation requests are mutually exclusive, i doubt any of the resources used for very different purposes would have any opportunity cost.
I do understand that travel is being discouraged and rightly so, but i don't think we should be penalized especially when we may have commitments abroad which are urgent. I'm not saying it should be back to pre-pandemic timelines of 2 weeks to a month, but within 3 months of landing is a more than reasonable time frame to get one, all things considered especially with services starting to resume. Even if i do agree that with the pandemic, it's hard to have expectations for anything to be completed.
However, the right to free movement is important too.
I do understand that travel is being discouraged and rightly so, but i don't think we should be penalized especially when we may have commitments abroad which are urgent. I'm not saying it should be back to pre-pandemic timelines of 2 weeks to a month, but within 3 months of landing is a more than reasonable time frame to get one, all things considered especially with services starting to resume. Even if i do agree that with the pandemic, it's hard to have expectations for anything to be completed.
However, the right to free movement is important too.
I don't know if Ontario is different, but here in BC you can't for instance get a BC Drivers Licence, BC Services Card / Health Card without a PR Card. So the PR card is not only essential for travel but it is a vital form of identification. Also, several financial institutions won't help me without a PR Card.
I am also in BC, and I was indeed wondering about driving license and Health card without PR card...I assumed they accepted the COPR, but I understand that it is not the case? Have you tried already? May I ask which financial institutions required the PR card?
Sorry, I do not know that much about SIN. As far as the address is concerned, I would use the address that is most reliable. I've heard of many cases where relatives/friends have opened confidential mails, and SIN is pretty damn confidential. Use your judgement.
For a Health Card you need your PR Card, but because of the situation you can phone them and get temporary coverage with COPR. Also, you can't use COPR at ICBC for the knowledge test or driver's license unfortunately.
Only the large banks allow you to open an account with a passport and COPR
I’ve also heard of problems with applying for Canada Child Benefit (CCB) without a PR card.
Yes, also some people don't accept COPR because it doesn't meet the threshold of photo ID confirming your immigration status.
Exactly. That’s why it kind of gets to me when people say that “a PR card is just a travel document”. Erm, no, it is not. How am I supposed to bank (where I want) or exchange my licence without a PR card?
What is more, IRCC has a service standard to issue new PR cards within 60 days of landing, guess it isn’t happening anytime in 2020:
https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/corporate/mandate/service-declaration/service-standards.html#prcard
Got an email today from IRCC stating that they are still working on my application. The text is as follows:
You may not have heard from us in a little while. This is normal. Most of the progress on your application happens closer to your estimated completion date.
We send messages to your account if we need something from you. When we do that, we'll also send you an email to this address: XXXXX@zzzz.com
You may not have heard from us in a little while. This is normal. Most of the progress on your application happens closer to your estimated completion date.
We send messages to your account if we need something from you. When we do that, we'll also send you an email to this address: XXXXX@zzzz.com