For those of us not already living in Canada, the extra time between seeing that and knowing with certainty can make a big difference. There are things that I will eventually need to do that I can do without having the COPR in hand but that I don't want to start until I know for sure that we have been approved. Finishing up packing, beginning the process of changing my name in the U.S., starting the process of negotiating with my apartment complex's leasing office to try and minimize the cost of breaking my lease by giving them as much time as possible to find a new tenant, starting the transition between schools for my daughter which will be made slightly more complex by the fact she would have started school in Canada a year earlier than she did here, and giving the people who will be helping me move as much notice as possible so we can start looking at potential timelines based on when the COPR might arrive.
CIC is going to maintain a call center, and based on how long it can take people to get through at times, I don't think it's staffed particularly well to begin with. I have my doubts that if fewer calls were going to the call center so that they could slash its budget that that money would instead be allocated to hiring more visa officers. The biggest thing that would help them with slashing the call center budget would be to fix their online systems so that they actually give useful information to the applicant directly.
