Hi, see this extracted from an earlier post by a senior on the forum;
1) CIO Sydney Completeness check
Once your application arrives at CIO, Sydney, Nova Scotia, Canada the first thing that happens is it will undergo a completeness check. This check will ensure:
- That you have included all required forms
- That any forms which have space for a signature have been signed and dated
- That you have not left any blank fields
- That you have included the correct payment fee
- That you have included all supporting documents required by both the main CIO checklist, and the visa-office specific checklist
If unsuccessful your entire application will be returned to you by regular post with a covering letter. You will not get an email notification from CIO.
2) CIO Sydney Payment charged
If your completeness check is successful your payment will be taken. This means CIO will attempt to charge your credit card, or they will cash your banker's draft, depending on which method of payment you chose.
If your CC payment is unsuccessful your entire application will be returned to you by regular post with a covering letter. You will not get an email notification from CIO.
3)CIO Sydney Eligibility review
CIO then perform a complete eligibility review on your application, based on the information you have provided on your forms and they will examine your supporting documents to ensure it backs up the claims you have made.
They will also assess your application against the selection criteria – age, education, work experience, adaptability, job offer and language skills etc, to ensure you have 67 points. They will use your supporting documents to convince themselves that there is sufficient proof to back up the claims you have made on your forms in these areas.
If your eligibility review is unsuccessful you will receive an email stating the reasons and your entire application will be returned to you. Since CIO have already taken payment by this point they will initiate a refund of your fees, which will likely take several months to get to you. Please note this is the last point at which you will receive a refund if your application is unsuccessful.
At this stage your ECAS status should now read “CIO eligibility review complete”.
4) CIO Sydney PER issued and file transferred
If your eligibility review is successful, CIO will send you a confirmation of positive final eligibility review. This will be by email if you specified an email on your application, otherwise they will send a letter by regular post. They will then transfer your file to
the CHC/VO (Canadian High Commission/Visa Office) for further processing.
Please see the “PER” page of this blog for the text of the PER and also the CIC email address from which it will arrive, so you can add this into your contacts list on your email.
Once the file gets to the visa office (which usually takes 2 to 4 weeks) your ECAS status will read “Received by visa office”.
5)2nd AOR from visa office
Once your application arrives at the visa office, they will sit on it for a while. When they are in a position to process it most visa offices will send you a 2nd AOR. Please see the link at the top for an example of this, from Manila office and the wordings vary from visa office to visa office. Also some offices send by email, and others send by snail mail. There is still no need to do anything at this stage. A few visa offices, most notably London, will not send a 2nd AOR at all but will skip this and go straight to medicals, or ask for further documentation.
6) Processing begins document background checks
Once the visa office begins processing your file they will commence with document background checks.
At this stage your ECAS status should now read “In Process” with the extra line in the detail “Your application was reviewed and we started processing on <Date>”.
This document background check will include ascertaining the authenticity of your documents, and since they use some third party companies for this it could take a varying level of time depending on your visa office, the complexity of your case, and even the speed of the individual visa officer looking at your case. They may also perform employment verification checks which will involve telephoning both you (whilst at work) and your employer to ensure you give the same answers on their questions about your employment. Only a small percentage of applicants are likely to receive employment verification. Only if they are unconvinced by any of the work experience documents you sent, or if your application is one of the random spotchecks they do to prevent fraud, will they actually perform the verification.
Visa office may request further documentation from you during the processing phase, which can come by email or snail mail.
They may also ask for a few things (PCCs or fresh forms) at the same time as medicals (see below)
7) Medical requests and RPRF fee request
Once the document background checks are completed satisfactorily, the visa office will write to you (usually by snail mail) requesting you to complete medicals and also requests RPRF (Right of Permanent Residents fee). They may also ask for updated documents such as PCCs and fresh forms at this stage. Please note that New Delhi visa office will also request passports at this stage. Most other visa offices will not request passports until they are about to finalise the application.
This will basically involve your booking medical appointments at one of the approved DMPs (Designated Medical Practitioner) throughout the country. The fee will vary slightly from DMP to DMP, but obviously converted into your own currency.
Hope the above helps, cheers.