Everyone, I am a part of this Whatsapp group & one of the participants shared this info that came from an ex-IRCC officer:
There are no approvals for July, August and September 2020. There are only a very small few acknowledgement of receipts at this point. 2019 submissions should, most definitely have acknowledgement of receipt so if they don't, I'd truly recommend following up. There is most definitely a reason for longer wait times on spousals. It is quite definitely based in the short sightedness of the government in requiring the applications to be paper based, generally, which has become far more apparent due to COVID. While I do expect that this shortsightedness will be addressed, it isn't going to be a fast action. Twenty years working for government makes you very well aware how complex any change is and how slow it is to affect such change. Honestly, some of the temporary policies they've been putting in place are lightning speed compared to usual. Understand that officers are also people and deserve safety and protection as well. Because of the shortsightedness, which, FYI, is something officers have been trying to address for a couple of decades, we are now in a situation where only a small percentage of workers are permitted to be in office due to the pandemic for their own safety. Paper applications MUST be processed in office for security reasons, though they are currently uploading them for remote officers to process. We will generally see a bit more movement as this happens, but there is still only a low percentage of clerks allowed in office to scan those files to the cloud servers. Because of this, some files are likely being physically transferred to other offices so they can increase the number of clerks doing this work without compromising safety and security. There's a WHOLE lot more going on behind the scenes than you know. I, personally, know several hundred officers. not a single one isn't compassionate, but they are told how they are required to work. They also don't wish to be put in danger for something that could still be processed within a reasonable time frame under the circumstances and by exercising a little patience. It totally sucks for you to have to wait for an immigration process. It would suck worse to have a serious outbreak of covid in an immigration office that would completely halt any options for catching up files. It literally takes years to train an officer to competency, and it's very difficult to complete the hiring process as well. You definitely need the officers they have to be and remain healthy if you have any hope of having your file completed. Only you can decide if Canada is the right choice for you. Other countries, like the US, can be much harder to get approvals. Australia is FAR more costly and takes YEARS. And last I heard, they completely stopped all processing. Canada is, at least trying. Again, it sucks....even for me. I like to see my clients happy. But I also spent 2 decades working on the government side so I know there's much more involved than most people realize.