Called IRCC again today just to see what’s going on. Found out a few interesting details:
depending on the call centre rep you get connected with, you can get luckier and extract more details than the usual “generic response” saying that “everything is good, please get off the line already”. There are some genuine human beings behind the line who actually listen to you and understand the frustration you go through. I think setting the tone in a friendly but slightly concerned manner might be able to get them to do some digging for you. I did get luckier than usual this time as the rep was very thorough and tried her best to answer all my questions.
some things to get off the bat once and for all: E-grant DF is simply a department within citizenship processing. As far as I understood, application which are about 80% complete (despite LPP or not) are in this category. Consider it the last “hard check” done by IRCC and if all goes well after that, oath queueing happens.
second thing: call centre reps indeed see your GCMS notes, the same ones you see. The moment I blurted out “e-grant DF” the rep said “Oh I see this as well, e-grant DF”. I am honestly unsure whether they see the most updated version of it or not, but they do see the same things we see in our notes. In a sense this was helpful.
third: I pushed my luck and asked to see if this person was able to see my redacted note and she could not, OR chose not to disclose it with me due to policies in place. However, she did confirm the visible notes were the same as the ones I see in GCMS.
Final thoughts? If you want to know about your application through IRCC’s phone channel, you gotta get lucky and find someone who isn’t there to get the call done in 5 minutes. You have to hope that this person is actually willing to read thoroughly about your case and if there is any disclosable detail they can share with you so that you can get some peace of mind. Hostility won’t get you anywhere. I tried to be as nice and cordial as I could and I would that really help shedding light on things I didnt know before. I was also told that as soon as my application reaches the 15 month mark and I dont hear from them, I should be getting in touch with IRCC asap so that they can advocate on my behalf and find out why it may be taking so long. Nothing I didn’t know but it always feels appeasing to hear it from a human voice. I was told that in my case everything was okay and all I need now is to exercise patience, like the rest of us.