Hi all...
Please read the below reply from Minister Jason Kenny office, after I send a case specific email to him:
"I am replying to your email of September 30, 2011, addressed to the Honourable Jason Kenney, Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism, about your application for permanent residence (APR) under the Federal Skilled Worker (FSW) Program. I apologize for this delayed response.
We appreciate your wish to become a permanent resident of Canada as soon as possible. Please be assured that you will be contacted by visa officers as soon as they have completed a review of your case to determine if additional information, documentation or a personal interview is required.
As you may be aware, changes were made to immigration legislation in 2008 that allows Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) to set, through Ministerial Instructions (MI), the number and type of applications considered for processing each year, as well as the order in which these applications will be processed.
Under the first set of instructions (MI-1) CIC used this new authority under immigration law to control the type of applications received, but not the number. The number of applications received exceeds our ability to process them in a timely manner. CIC introduced caps on June 26, 2010, on the FSW Program as part of the second MI. CIC has limited the intake of new FSW applications to better match the number CIC can actually process within the annual levels plan tabled in Parliament. The third set of MI, introduced in June 2011, further adjusted the intake of Economic Class APRs. FSW applications under the third MI are processed on a priority basis.
Further information can be found at:
http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/department/media/releases/2011/2011-06-24a.asp.
CIC has received enough FSW applications since February 27, 2008 to reach immigration levels for the next two years. Unfortunately, it will take longer to process those submitted under the first set of instructions (between February 27, 2008 and June 25, 2010) than originally projected. This number represents more than twice the number of projected admissions under the Program in 2011.
CIC’s goal is to make the immigration system more responsive to labour market needs. By giving priority to FSW applications received on or after July 1, 2011, CIC is responding to the most urgent labour market needs first. The length of time it takes to finalize an application under this Program varies from one visa office to another since visa offices face different challenges. CIC continues to work towards global service standards and the use of departmental standard forms to minimize such regional variations as much as possible.
A request by an applicant to have expedited processing is understandable. However, in the interest of fairness and program integrity, our policy is to process applications in the order in which they are received. To move one file ahead in the queue would not be fair to the many applicants in similar situations who had applied earlier.
Thank you for taking the time to write. I trust that this information is of assistance."
J. Burton
Ministerial Enquiries Division
This electronic address is not available for reply.
