I am AOR OCT 1, 2020. VO First Montreal--Hamilton--Edmonton.
I have been waiting for over 2 years for this nonsense to end. Here is a synopsis of what I have gone through.
-I invested more than $200,000 in a Canadian business for a NOC 00 LMIA as a CEO in my own company.
-Applied for a 200-point LMIA in May 2020. Waited 4 months, finally received LMIA on 27th Sept 2020.
-Got ITA at the end of September 2020 and did medicals on 9th Oct 2020. Applied for EE on 14th Oct 2020.
-At this stage IRCC had resumed draw after a period of almost 5 months. The draws went on all almost till the end of December 2020 which is when they finally stopped.
- The stipulated processing time was almost 8 months at that stage, so I didn't really think much of anything.
-My medicals were finally passed on 4th December 2020.
-The 6-month timeline finally ended on 1st April 2021. The next thing I hear is that there was a massive CEC draw where the cut off score was around 70 or something and that they emptied all the applications in the CEC pool.
-On studying any immigration forum such as this one or AskKubeir etc, one could easily notice that approvals for the CEC applicants was coming in around 45-60 days. Well, good for them but if they are processing these applications so fast, they are obviously doing so at the cost of others.
-This was 7 months into my application and still roughly within the processing time range, so I still didn't think too much of this.
-Now we are into 8 months, still lots of approvals coming for 2 month old CEC applications of the golden draw but nothing for us FSW inlanders.
-Into 9-10-11-12 months, I get a GU finally in Oct 2021. Believing finally someone is working on my application, I get all happy and excited only to find out that that was my medicals expiring. My medicals are extended again. In the meantime, I have requested for ATIP notes from IRCC atleast 4 times but they decided not to send me those as well. Someone suggested I try to order notes from CBSA, and I do. CBSA was kind of to send me notes. The the only meaningful thing I find in the notes is that application is being kicked from Montreal to Hamilton to Edmonton like a football.
-Now we are into the 18 months of my application in March 2022. Alas! Finally, I hear from IRCC. This is an ADR for proof of funds. First of all, does IRCC really expect me to hold on to my savings for 18 months till 'you jokers' process my application. I mean I have blocked close to 20,000 CAD liquidity. Its understandable doing so for 6 months but it's unrealistic to ask for this 19 months later. At this point I have already been in Canada and already settled with a household etc. I am already settled in Canada at this stage. What settlement funds are these guys even looking for? They are simply following a handbook without any human intervention and logic. Luckily, I had another fixed deposit in my spouse's name which I dully submitted. 1 month later they decide to send me another ADR saying that my spouse's passport validity has to be atleast 6 months. It had almost 2 years left when I submitted the application, but you morons decided to delay it. We hurriedly applied to renew my spouse's passport. After using lots of pulls we submitted the passport before the last submission date of 19th April 2022. If they don't ask for all the documents at once, then my documents will keep expiring one by one. These stupid points keep adding to the delay as they have a bring forward date, meaning when they have requested you for a new document they have a 30,60 or a 90 day time until they can look at your file again.
-Subsequently, in May, June, July, August I had sent the webforms reminding them that I have sent them all ADR's.
-Now they have gone to sleep again. We are now in the 24 month of the application. Next thing you know is some other document expires and then they will send me a ADR again. Like, ofcourse something is going to expire if you don't process it even after receiving ADR.
-Guess what my medicals expired again October 2022.
Like does the Canadian government think that we are stupid? What gives them the right to treat us this way? A process that should have taken 6-8 months has gone over 24 months. At the same time, a friend who I helped put in preparing an application, who launched his application in April 2022 and even get a job offer through BC PNP has already got his PR. He is in Canada, applying for SIN numbers, getting BCID's and applying for drivers licenses. -Their working style is akin to some of the least developed countries around the world. If they were so backlogged, then why the hell did they resume conducting draws in the first place in August 2020. Also, if they still have not finished 2020 like mine and many others then why have they started conducting FSW draws again 2023. And then all you have to do is watch Marco Mendecinos interviews to get infuriated.
Its not about 6 months, 12 months or 24 months processing time. Its about how some of us are being treated with outright disregard and neglect. If the processing time was 24 months, then this should have been informed to us before our applications. Understood that there was COVID, but then shouldn't our applications have been processed before proceeding to 2021 and 2022 applications. How is it that applications launched in April 2022 gets processed first and ours still doesn't. This COVID excuse is all garbage. They are clearly following LIFO. This is gross mismanagement, thats what it is. This is a country that takes pride in treating its citizenry equally. In Canada line ups are taken pretty seriously. Try jumping the line in a Safeway, Walmart, or Service Canada. You will be reminded how you are supposed to be in a line. Then why no line up in immigration? They don't care about prospective immigrants. What they clearly wanted was not to delay the new files and indefinitely delay the 2020 files.
The sad fact is that the Minister for IRCC knows what going. It was their deliberate strategy to come up with a CEC score so low so that they enough applications to process CEC inland, casually ignoring FSW the inland applicants. They care about their annual targets and nothing else, we are merely a number. They have this unsaid approach that if we are immigrants, we must be needy, poor and desperate. We will do anything to leave our home countries and we can be treated badly. I honestly don't care about rejection or acceptance but don't like this uncertainty looming for so long. Just go ahead and reject my file, at least I'll know what I have to do next. Most of us have rented houses, signed commercial leases, bought cars. Some of us want to upgrade, some want to downgrade. All these decisions have been stuck for the last 2 years.
We are inlanders, with profile, identity, SIN, bank account, paying taxes in Canada. We should have been shown little more respect and concern. I don't see getting immigration as a privilege. I do not view this a favor being done to the Canadian government to me. Its simply a transaction. My investment, skills, experience for a right to live and work in the country. I am by no means subservient to them. I have plenty of opportunities elsewhere as well. If one has to go through this to live here, then we are better off being in our respective home countries. So for me this is the last straw. Adios Amigos!. Its a great country but not for me. So good luck to everyone, but I am outta here.