In a week I will have completed my 7 months of waiting and enter the 8th month! Meanwhile I've lost my entire motivation and enthusiasm for Canada and think that this country's bureaucracy is the worst I've ever experienced in terms of transparency. The over-securitization of the immigration process and the almost paranoid suspicion of immigrants without reasonable reason indicates a clear discrepancy from the image of Canada as a welcoming country for immigrants. Unfortunately nobody knows or want to know this shadow side of Canadian immigration bureaucracy. Although the overwhelming majority of Canadians were unable to fulfill the entire criteria to be elected for this hard immigrant selection system and each of immigration candidates in this forum is at least two times more qualified than Canada born citizens here in Canada in terms of their qualification and experience, the IRCC treats and considers us as a number. This process is quite degrading and alienating for many immigrants and actually gradually undermines the integration process of immigrants, their contribution to Canadian society and their identification as Canadian immigrants. It is nonsense to process security screening this long because inland applicants like me are already in Canada, and as everybody can easily figure out, you don't need to be a Canadian PR in order to threaten Canada's security. In contrary, people who are inland applicants are well established here, work and produce, pay taxes, their children go to school and already feel as much as Canadian as in Canada born children. It is a sort of victimization or bullying because you as a taxpayer are considered as a potential criminal or a security threat and they even don't share any information about the screening process. This kind of bureaucracy should not have place in a democratic country like Canada. Suppose someone is a security threat. Do you think it takes more than 12 weeks to find out this? My security screening has been ongoing since 25 January 2017. I do not believe that any institution in 21st century needs that long time to investigate any person in the world to check his/her background. It is a matter of minutes or max. hours, not days/weeks/months to process an appropriate security check. Anybody who thinks they need this time is an ignorant. Bad guys do not apply to get permanent resident status in order to do bad things, guys. They don't provide a couple of police clearance certificates and provide all personal data/documents/info to state authorities. Of course they need to do security screening. And if they find a gap to suspect people, well go on with further checks, sure! But putting every person into the pot of suspected potential criminals is and cannot be the right way. IRCC is acting irrationally and inefficiently, and moreover, spending taxes irresponsibly. It is also making Canada look bad in undermining identification of already established immigrants with Canada. I personally feel this treatment unacceptable and consider as the cold shoulder towards me and my family. My conclusion: Canada's being immigrant friendly / welcoming is by no means reflected in its immigration system. With other words, the self perception of Canada to be a welcoming country for immigrants is just a myth.
These are my humble considerations after a while experience with Canadian immigration bureaucracy.
Hope you guys are much luckier than me and have much better experiences than us.
Best of luck!